MAR 


FN 





Library of Che Theological Seminary 
PRINCETON : NEW JERSEY “a 
\° | CD 


3 PRESENTED BY 


John Stuart ne DD. na 


PAT 205 coc ene eo 
Tharaud, Jean, 1877-1952. 
The shadow of the cross 








1 
AUX La sut 4 
ree. pete J) is al 


1) le 


ae À Lu 
FA * à 
| ss 
wy 





THE SHADOW 
OF THE CROSS 


New BORZOI Books 
Spring, 1924 


PLUTARCH LIED 
Jean de Pierrefeu 


THE FABRIC OF EUROPE 
Harold Stannard 


SAINT HELENA, LITTLE ISLAND 
M. A. Aldanov 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 
Jean and Jerome Tharaud 


THE OLD AND THE NEW GERMANY 
John Firman Coar 


THE SHADOW 
OF THE CROSS 


Translated from the | French of 
JEAN & JÉRÔME THARAUD 


by Frances DeLanoy Lrrrie 





NEW YORK 
ALFRED : A+ KNOPF 
1924 


COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INO. 


Published, January, 192h 


Set up and printed by the Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., Binghamton, N. Y. 
Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York. 
Bound by H. Wolff Hstate, New York. 


MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


CONTENTS 


THE THORA OF HOUNFALOU 
Tue RaBBi AND His MIRACLES 
THE FESTIVAL OF KIPPOUR 
THE BREAKING OF THE CUP 
THE GIFT OF THE ETERNAL 

A Cuitp Like A WAXEN DOLL 
“NEXT YEAR AT JERUSALEM!” 
THE RoaD TO THE Cross 
THE SUPERNATURAL STRANGER 
THE Marve -s or BELS 
PouRIM 

THE SOFER’S CRIME 


“HEAR, O ISRAEL!” 


103 


143 
152 


195 
205 
227 


FAN rag TUNER À 
ee iite Où EME À IN: ¥ 

; * PAS PEN AE if 

1 Dh oi ( 

LISTER { 
LA Pat | 
"4 HA : 
+ i 

Lt 


à CT § 


Digitized by the Internet Archive _ 
in 2022 with funding from | 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 





https://archive.org/details/shadowofcrossOOth ar 
| a 


£ 1 
4 


THE SHADOW" 
OF, THE GROSS 


ae | 


NA 1 
re 
No 
af 
Wis 


(à 
he fa r} 
ae te 


Du 


aay a Vani AN 





ins 


Du À 


CH A Bakr RE 
fer Ee O R'AMOTFRBEICNUENSE ALL O10 


This little Carpathian village, built beside a 
rushing stream on the borders of the sombre forest 
and the great Hungarian plain, is the village of 
Hounfalou. Except to the eyes of those who 
dwell there, it looks exactly like a hundred other 
villages of Upper Hungary. Here, as elsewhere, are 
the tall, dark, melancholy fir trees; here, too, the 
overhanging woods of beech, hornbeam, and 
birch; on the steep hillsides the new-mown grass 
is drying on the stakes, and through the fine 
autumn days the storks are sitting on the same 
dead trees. Here are the ramshackle hovels of 
the Gipsies, or Tziganes, noisy always with sounds 
from the forge, with crying of children, and the 
shriek of violins. Here are the Hungarian houses 
with narrow windows which look out for five 
months on a world of green and all the rest of 
the year on snow, while between their double 
sashes the plants of carnation and geranium are 
growing in pots; there is the church-square with 
its sweet-smelling lime tree and the prosperous 


[9] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


abode of the Headman of the village, whose wide- 
open door seems crying to the traveller: “Enter 
here, stranger, and be welcome; the cards and the 
brandy await thee.” Here are the Jewish houses, 
distinguished from others by holy mezuzzah, the 
sacred zinc phylacteries nailed against the door- 
posts. And here is the beloved synagogue. 

Ah, how poor is the synagogue of the Jews of 
Hounfalou, there in the market-place, close beside 
the village church with its bulb-shaped steeple, so 
high that it is often struck by lightning, and its 
rich windows, painted like those in a prince’s 
palace. 

The synagogue is nothing but a dull house, 
hardly distinguishable from the other peasant 
dwellings; it has no magnificent roof, but a 
wretched covering of thatch; no flooring but the 
trodden earth; and in the entrance is a puddle 
formed by the water spilt from the pail for ablu- 
tions. Instead of the perfume of incense there is 
a horrible smell of poverty, of tobacco and of 
damp clothing. It has a few benches, a few 
desks, some seven-branched candlesticks of iron, 
a wooden stand filled with old burnt-out candles 
hanging from the cross-beam, and, far at the back, 
against the west wall, a deal cupboard covered 
by an ancient crimson velvet curtain upon which 
are embroidered the two Lions of Judah. But, 
amid all this poverty and frowsy filth, within the 

[10] 


Es MORAY OF yHOUN FAL OU 


little cupboard, behind the two Lions of Judah 
there rest the holy Thora, the sacred Books of 
Moses, the Word of God to His people whom He 
guided in the wilderness and still guides through 
the world: and that Word is as faithful and as 
precious among the burning sands of Horeb, of 
Egypt, and of Sinai as among the sodden plains 
of Poland or the wild Carpathian valleys. 

This morning the September sun was shining 
with its ancient, immemorial rays upon all the 
Jews of the village assembled together for prayer. 

There were about fifty of them, dressed in their 
long straight garments, spotted and mudstained; 
miry boots, and round hats worn on the back of 
the head, or bonnets of moth-eaten fur. Strange 
people of a far-off age and a far-distant country! 
Long locks of hair hung in ringlets on their 
cheeks, sometimes in lank wisps, sometimes in 
well-arranged curls, and formed a frame for the 
large and regular features of faces in which the 
quick-flashing jet-black Eastern eyes expressed in 
the same glance furtive apprehension, good-nature, 
and cunning. Over their head-gear they had 
placed the taliss of white wool, the prayer-scarf 
with fringes of blue and embroideries of silver; 
on the forehead was fixed, like an enormous 
wen, the little square box, containing the precepts 
of the Law; round the left arms were tied the 
sacred bands; for the Lord had said: ‘Thou 


[11] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


shalt bind My Commandments as a sign upon 
thy hand, and they shall be as a frontlet between 
thine eyes.” 

All, with feet firmly planted on the ground, 
were swaying with a rapid movement backwards 
and forwards, backwards and forwards as if in 
the frenzied agitation of epilepsy or convulsions, 
in order to associate the whole body with the 
soul’s effort of prayer. A clamorous chant 1s- 
sued from these bearded mouths and noses muf- 
fled in the filthy scarf, an imploring cry which 
broke forth suddenly into a wild howling that 
rose and fell, burst forth, and sank, and was 
lost in a hubbub of voices. Some smote hard 
upon the book of prayer lying on the desk before 
them, thus affirming their faith in what was writ- 
ten therein; others seemed as if explaining some 
confused matter to a judge or a friend whom 
one seizes by the skirts of his garment; others 
lifted a clenched fist towards the roof of thatch, 
in a gesture that looked more like a threat than 
a supplication; and others raised their arms to 
heaven as if to uphold their prayer and bring it 
near unto the Lord. 

On a sudden the rocking movement stopped. 
The prayers and the moaning ceased instanta- 
neously. The misery, the anguish, the mortal 
grief all at once vanished. An air of content and 


[12] 


tea ei O RAO PAHOIUUNIEE AE: OU 


blessedness appeared upon every face. The 
prayer was finished. 

Each man folded up his taliss, black with the 
dirt of several generations, took from his forehead 
the little sacred box, and turning back the dingy 
sleeve from his thin and pallid arm, unfastened the 
leathern armlets. Pipes and tobacco were pro- 
duced from the pockets of their caftans, and soon 
the smoke was curling among the motes of the 
sunbeams. A noise of conversation, almost as 
turbulent as the prayer itself, filled all the syna- 
gogue. 

At this moment the Schames,! having opened 
a recessed cupboard in the wall, drew forth a bot- 
tle of brandy and a basket filled with spiced bread, 
and then in a loud voice announced: “Kadok 
Meyer requests the company to do honour to 
this breakfast.” 

The man Meyer had, on that very morning, 
completed his study of a chapter in the Talmud, 
and in order to celebrate the happy event he of- 
fered this treat to the pious assembly. 

The Jews, who had not yet broken their fast, 
and whose appetites had been whetted by their 
holy gymnastics, all rushed to the cupboard and 
flung themselves upon the brandy and the new- 
baked rolls. In less than a minute both the bot- 


1 À sort of sacristan or beadle. 


[13] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


tle and the basket were empty. But instead of 
dispersing, according to their usual custom, to 
pursue their various occupations in the village, 
they remained in the synagogue that they might 
hear from Reb Jankele, President of the Com- 
munity, what announcement he had to make 
touching the will of Faïbisch Ungerleider, who 
had passed into Abraham’s bosom the week be- 
fore. 

“Hush, Jews! Silence, silence!” the Schames 
cried again, not from the brandy cupboard this 
time, but from the press containing the Thora. 

At once they all raced in that direction, push- 
ing and hustling one another, with the true Jewish 
eagerness to seize whatever there is to be had, 
even were it only a piece of news. 

In the midst of a hubbub which in any other 
place would have seemed a frightful tumult, but 
which in the synagogue appeared comparative 
quiet, Reb Jankele began: 

“Sirs, what have I to tell you to-day? I have 
to tell you that Faibisch Ungerleider died last 
week———” 

“We know it! We know it!” was the cry from 
all sides. 

“May it please the Master of the world, the 
Holy of Holies (blessed be He!), that he may 
sleep well in his grave, and this I wish also to 
every good Jew——” 

[14] 


THE THORA OF HOUNFALOU 


“And I to you, Mr. President,’ interrupted a 
little man hidden in the crowd of caftans. 

“Faibisch Ungerleider, gentlemen, bequeathed 
at his death three times one hundred and eighty 
florins to the Community ti 

“Long life to him!” shouted the assembly. 

“You mean to say ‘Good rest to him 
squeaked the little man once more. But he had 
been rash enough to slip in amid the front row 
of the faithful, just within reach of the President, 
who gave him a box on the ears, and continued: 

“, .. for the purpose of making a copy of the 
Thora, and assuring to himself a joyful resur- 
rection in the holy ground of Jerusalem.” 

Whereupon, these fifty Jews, who demanded 
nothing better than an opportunity of quarrelling 
among themselves and displaying their cleverness, 
began to dispute interminably, with that furious 
ardour which gives to the most simple conversa- 
tion between two Jews something of the appear- 
ance of a battle. Had the deceased done well or 
ill in bequeathing a sum of money to the Com- 
munity for the purpose of making a copy of the 
Thora? Were there not already enough sacred 
books in the cupboard? Would it not have been 
better to devote this money to the rebuilding of 
the ritual bath? Was three times one hundred 
and eighty florins a great sum or a small 
one? Would Faibisch Ungerleider come to life 


[19] 





229,3 
! 


THE ASHADOW (OF SOBRE CROSS 


again or not in the holy ground of Jerusalem? 

Such were the questions bandied about to and 
fro in an inextricable confusion of explanation 
and argument. But that which raised the most 
passionate interest of all was the question which 
illustrious copyist, which famous Sofer, of Pres- 
burg, of Koloszvar, of Lemberg, or of Bels in Po- 
land, should be entrusted with the honour of 
copying the Thora bequeathed by the lamented 
Faibisch Ungerleider. 

It is no easy thing, even with three times one 
hundred and eighty florins, to obtain a Thora 
without a defect. In order that a Thora may 
be perfect, that it may be pleasing to the Master 
of the world, it is necessary that the three thou- 
sand eight hundred and forty-five lines of which 
the Book of Moses is composed should be writ- 
ten, according to the ritual law, upon a roll of 
parchment that has never been defiled by any un- 
clean touch. It is necessary that the copyist, 
throughout the whole course of his work, should 
wear upon his person the attributes of the morning 
prayer, that he should envelop his head and 
beard in the woollen taliss, that he should wear 
upon his left arm and hand the holy bands of 
leather, and that he should have upon his fore- 
head the little square box in which are enclosed 
the Commandments of the Law. 

Moreover, it is necessary that he should dis- 

[16] 


THE THORA OF HOUNFALOU 


place certain letters in certain words in a caba- 
listic manner, and that he should write others in 
such a way that they should fill the end of a line. 
Finally, it is necessary that he should use a special 
pen and special ink to inscribe the name of 
Adonai, under whichever form it may appear. 
And each time that the dreaded Name recurs in 
the sacred text, the copyist, before writing it, 
must pronounce a benediction and even repair to 
the ritual bath. Every day he is obliged to dip 
himself in it more than thirty times, and there 
are some Thoras which are said to have occupied 
the caligraphist ten years. On these conditions 
alone, the sacred Book sanctifies the Sofer who 
has copied it, the Community which possesses it 
and the Jew who touches it. 

They all shouted together, in that composite 
language, made up of German, Russian, Hun- 
garian, Spanish, and their ancestral Hebrew. 
Their dazzlingly white teeth flashed between fast- 
moving lips; their eyes darted glances sharp as 
arrows, then suddenly were veiled and turned in- 
wards as if seeking in the depths of their souls 
some new, more subtle arguments; with wild and 
rapid movements they flourished their long nerv- 
ous hands in a thousand varied gestures ex- 
pressive of every shade of thought which was 
passing in their minds. Every one of those long, 
thin, black-nailed fingers performed its part be- 


[17] 


THE SHADOW, OF THE SCROSS 


fore their faces as if those fingers were mario- 
nettes, or tiny living creatures each endowed with 
an individual life; and if it happened that the 
hand for an instant ceased its work of explaining 
and convincing it was only to plunge itself fever- 
ishly in the beard in search of a louse or an idea. 

And yet they were all of one accord! Every 
one knew that a Thora without a defect could 
come only from Bels, that holy village where 
dwelt the Zadik, one of the four miracle-working 
Rabbis of Eastern Europe. Every one knew, 
also, that among the Sofers of Bels none was to 
be compared, for scrupulousness and piety, to Reb 
Eljé Lebowitz. Besides this, a fire had occurred 
quite recently in a synagogue in the township of 
Marmaras, when twenty Thoras which were kept 
in the cupboard there had fallen a prey to the 
flames. One only had escaped, and that one by 
a miracle. One of the faithful had rushed to 
the burning cupboard, had seized the Book in his 
arms, and, in order to preserve it from the fire, 
had placed it on his head and carried it so. The 
silken sheath in which the Law was wrapped 
caught fire like a dead leaf; the cord which binds 
together the two wooden cylinders round which 
the sacred Book is folded was immediately con- 
sumed, the parchment unrolled and fell in two 
long silvery streamers on either side of the pious 
Jew from his head to his feet. He emerged from 

[18] 


PAE RTL OR AMO BsvHjOU NB AYL’O U 


the fire as one coming out from a fountain, or from 
the ritual bath, purified and refreshed. Not one 
letter of the manuscript had been touched by the 
flames. Now, who had transcribed this marvel- 
lous Thora? The famous Sofer of Bels, Reb Eljé 
Lebowitz! 

Nevertheless it required no less than an hour 
spent in chattering and telling of fabulous tales 
of the Sofer’s saintliness before the conclusion 
could be reached that Reb Eljé should copy the 
Thora, and that one of the Community should be- 
take himself to Bels in Poland in quest of the 
pious personage. 

But who was to go to Poland? Who should 
be the delegate of the Community? Who should 
receive the small sum of money assigned by the 
deceased Ungerleider to defray the cost of the 
journey? Every one coveted this honour and the 
small travelling expenses attached to it; every one 
wished to see the Sofer; every one wished to see 
the Zadik and ask him for a miracle. Besides, the 
prospect of making this journey—and free of 
expense, like an ambassador—excited in the Jews 
their crazy vanity, their desire to be distinguished 
before their fellows, and the ancient travelling in- 
stinct which Israel has carried in his soul since 
the dawn of time and which drives him forth un- 
tiringly on all the roads of the world. 

Each one strove, if not for his own success, at 


[19] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


least to prevent his neighbour from being elected 
by the assembly. The discussion now became so 
violent that all the earlier disputation seemed in 
comparison mere amicable talk. To put one an- 
other out of the running they probed without 
shame into the secrets of their lives. Ah, how well 
they knew one another! When, once a year, on 
the great Day of Pardon, God passes before Him 
like a flock of sheep all the Jews of the earth, 
and reads in their lives and in their hearts all 
the sins they have committed or have wished to 
commit, that He may write them in the Book of 
Life or in the Book of Death; ah, surely if happi- 
ness 1s in store for the Jews of Hounfalou, or of 
anywhere else, there must be eyes less piercing 
and a judgment less severe than those which these 
fifty sons of Israel assembled in that synagogue 
possess for one another! This one neglects the 
ritual bath; that other is not punctual in the 
observance of the prayer of Min’ha; a third has 
never read one line of the Talmud; a fourth 
drinks alcohol in secret; Schmoul does not strike 
his caftan while he prays; Mosché opens his 
tavern privately on Saturdays; Nokhem Patzer 
eats pork; Baruch Teller mixes his alcohol with 
water; the daughter-in-law of Solomon Schwartz 
has kept her hair uncut beneath her wig; the son 
of Lilienblum wears shoes with laces, and, worse 
still, a starched collar! Ah, yes, if the Master 
[201 


THE THORA OF HOUNFALOU 


of the world, the Holy of Holies (blessed be He!) 
knew but the half, or the half of the half of 
the transgressions of the Law which they are 
now casting in one another s teeth to prevent 
them from receiving the prize of this wonderful 
journey, not one of them, no, not one would ever 
be named in letters of gold in the Book of the 
Living! 

It was past nine o’clock. The sun was now 
higher in the sky, and his burning rays drew forth 
a stronger odour from caftans, boots, bonnets, 
beards and ringlets. Profiting by the absence of 
their schoolmaster, a troop of children, escaped 
from the heder, or Jewish school, were running 
round and round among the excited congrega- 
tion, knocking down the desks and benches, and 
chasing one another about the synagogue as if 
it had been the village square. Reb Jankele at- 
tempted in vain to enforce silence. Ever since 
the days of the Patriarchs an Israelite commands 
respect in greater or less degree according to the 
length of his beard, and the Lord had granted 
to Jankele only a few poor hairs on his chin. 
It was useless for him to stroke it with ample 
gesture as if caressing a full and luxuriant beard, 
no one paid any attention to his words. How- 
ever, he made a sensation at last by shouting out 
in the midst of the din that to facilitate the Com- 
munity’s choice of a delegate, the ambassador of 


[21] 


THE: SHADOW OF THES GROSS 


the Jews of Hounfalou should go to Bels at his 
own expense. 

Had the Lord performed in that moment for 
Reb Jankele the miracle He did in past days for 
Rabbi Eleazer, who, at the age of barely fifteen, 
woke one fine morning to find on his chin the 
white beard of a Moses, the company of Jews 
would not have felt greater astonishment. There 
was one moment of stupor, almost of silence. 
Then tumult broke out once more. No one now 
wanted to go to Bels in Poland, no one wished to 
order the Thora, no one cared any longer to see 
the miraculous Rabbi. “A fine legacy,” they said, 
“that is going to be nothing but a charge upon 
us! Just because the Jew Ungerleider chose to 
lie down in the grave, I must go to Bels at my 
own expense!” And no one had any difficulty 
in proving, to himself and to others, that his busi- 
ness made it impossible for him to leave it for 
so long. 

Somewhat apart from the tumult a man with 
hair already grizzled, Amram Trebitz, the pub- 
lican of the village, appeared engrossed in his 
prayers. He was deep in calculation of what ad- 
vantage a journey to Bels, even at his own ex- 
pense, might bring to him. Among innumerable 
transactions which he carried on in Hounfalou 
and the neighbourhood was that of a dealer in 
skins. Now every one knows that furs such as 

[22] 


THE THORA OF HOUNFALOU 


zibeline and wild cat are plentiful in Poland; be- 
sides, in the month of September the great feasts 
of Rosch-Hashenah and of Kippour bring to Bels 
thousands of pilgrims, among whom it would not 
be impossible to traffic. 

His resolution once taken, he sprang forward, 
and pushing through the crowd, he cried: 

“Hush, Jews! No more words about it! I will 
be the one who goes to Bels!” 

And to the admiration of all, he told how, every 
Friday, he had, as the Law commands, set apart 
one-tenth of his income for the poor, and with 
this sum he would make the journey into Poland 
and order the sacred Thora. 

The admiration was short-lived. Already 
every one was thinking that if Amram Trebitz, the 
most cunning trader in Hounfalou, offered to take 
the journey at his own expense, it was because 
he expected to find it profitable. And, the instinct 
for lucre being aroused, the dispute no doubt 
would have begun again had not Nokhem Patzer, 
who had been absent a few minutes, now entered, 
crying: 

“There are no more eggs in the market! That 
rascal Solomon Schwartz has bought them all up 
from the peasants while we were chattering! All 
the hens in the country have been laying for that 
wretch! And at this very moment he is playing 
the same trick with the maize!” 


[23] 


TAH/EUS 'H AD O'W OF FECES GC ROSES 


“May colic grip him in the belly!” shouted 
all the Jews together. 

And hastening precipitately from the House of 
the Lord, they rushed into the market-place. 


How remote, how far away, is that little Car- 
pathian village! Yet life there, after all, is not 
unlike life in other places. The Hungarian tills 
the soil, fells the trees of the forest, and leads out 
his flocks to the pasture; the Tzigane works at 
his forge when the whim takes him, thieves all 
the year round, and scrapes his violin; and the 
Jew prays, carries on his business and makes his 
profit out of them both. Who would supply the 
Tzigane with old iron for horseshoes? Who would 
buy the peasant’s corn, or his eggs and poultry? 
Who would lend him money? Who would make 
him tipsy on Sundays? Who would be the 
brain, the tongue, the lawyer, the doctor, the 
moneylender, the publican of this society? Who 
would be its Providence, its conscience, its vice, 
its good and evil genius? 

Truly it is God Himself Who has given the Jew 
to the village for its ruin or its salvation. In 
this grotesque form, this meagre figure in the 
caftan, with uncut beard and long corkscrew 
ringlets hanging down his cheeks, civilization has 
embodied itself. Under this squalid garb are hid- 
den all its novelties, its temptations and its knav- 

[24] 


MEUE NE OR AN OFS EON FE ALOU 


eries. Who could have believed it? That little 
Moses, that little Solomon whom one used to 
thrash when he was small, has now grown up 
and become a personage. He speaks, and people 
listen. One follows his advice; one almost feels 
a pride in him. | 

“Our village has twenty Jews.” “Yes, but ours 
has thirty.” “But our Jews have houses with 
red tiles on the roofs.” So talk the Hungarians. 
But should some accident happen, should a well 
be poisoned, should a wood take fire, or an epi- 
demic break out among the cattle, should any- 
thing, in short, unfortunate and unaccountable 
take place in the village, then who is the guilty 
person? Who poisoned the well? Who started 
the fire? Who cast a spell upon the beasts? 

The Tzigane perhaps is suspected, but it is the 
Jew who is accused. No one can grow rich as he 
does, no one can be so clever or so crafty or have 
so many tricks up his sleeve unless he’s in league 
with the devil. This is not the first time he has 
harmed us, the ugly Jew! Abuse and blows are 
showered upon him, but they do not touch him 
very deeply, for he has too much contempt for 
the peasant who beats him, he considers himself 
too superior to feel humiliated. He smiles, he 
bows down his back to the storm; the wind passes 
and the reed stands up once more; the Jew too 
lifts his head and continues to live. 


[29] 


THE ASH AD O0 W:FO/F SIME CROSS 


Whence comes he, this caftan-skirted Jew? 
From unhappy Poland, most often, or from in- 
hospitable Russia. One day, deserting the over- 
populated Ghettos, he presents himself at the 
Hungarian frontier. Yet one more Jew, behold, 
Lord, coming forth out of Mizraim and fleeing 
out of Egypt! What deserts, what Red Seas 
await him; and what miracles also! His bag of 
prayers upon his back and his Sabbath garments 
wrapped in a kerchief are the whole of his lug- 
gage. But he has confidence in his breast and 
faith in the eternal miracle. And at once, on 
his very outset, a miracle takes place. 

At the frontier a gendarme fixes an eye upon 
him. He is not a desirable, that fellow there in 
a caftan. “Dirty Jew, get back to where you 
came from!” And the gendarme has some forci- 
ble words in which to make clear this simple 
phrase to the man of Israel. 

But from his doorway Jacob, Abraham or Levi 
sees his fellow-believer struggling in the hands 
of the gendarme. “Alas, Master of the world,” 
he says to himself, “here comes another Jew! As 
if there were not enough of us here already! Why 
can't he stay in his Poland, cursed Jew in a caf- 
tan?” And even as he mutters these words, his 
flat feet slipping through his bursting shoes— 
those feet which in the day of judgment the Lord 
will surely recognize among a thousand—have 


[26] 


TET HO RIANO; F'MHIO!UINL FA OU 


set themselves in motion and carry him irre- 
sistibly towards his brother in distress. More 
loud than the voice of interest, the call of blood 
and of religion has sounded in his heart. Thus 
throughout all the ages it sounds with a voice 
that never fails. Jacob, Abraham or Levi goes 
up to the gendarme and says simply: “He’s my 
cousin, he’s my guest. Leave him alone; he is 
coming to stay with me.” And that is the first 
miracle! The frontier is passed. Yet once more 
the Master of the world has vanquished the 
haughty Pharaoh in the form of a gendarme. 

And wonder upon wonder is manifested on the 
path of the pious Jew! “I will never leave thee,” 
declared the Lord of Sabaoth. Two days, three 
days, until the gendarme has forgotten him, the 
wandering Jew stays with his fortune-given cousin. 
Then, at one bound, there he is fifteen leagues 
from the frontier. He hurries, hurries through the 
country, whistling to call the women to their doors 
and sell them his trumpery, bartering a bunch of 
maize for a little mirror, or a bit of old iron for 
a handful of salt. He buys everything, he sells 
everything. He does not know one blessed word 
of the language spoken in the villages he passes, 
but in less than three months he can make. him- 
self understood in Hungarian. 

It is a belief in Israel that every man is accom- 
panied by ten thousand angels on his right hand 


[27] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


and ten thousand demons on his left; and indeed 
to see him passing through the villages, a foreign 
vagabond with eyes ever moving, ears on the alert, 
and his air that at once betrays and causes sus- 
picion, one would say that he was hearkening to 
those twenty thousand discordant voices speaking 
to him all together. This whistling, long-haired, 
bearded Jew, with caftan in tatters and boots thick 
with mud, looks to the little Christians like a 
bogy. The mothers say to them when they cry: 
“Be good, or the whistling Jew will carry you 
Off.” And the village boys run behind his skirt, 
singing the old song: 


“The village lads eat bacon; 

Why does the Jew eat none? 

Jew, Jew, why can’t you eat bacon? 
See, the Hungarian eating bacon! 
Spit! goes the Jew ‘ 





But he, indifferent, with a smile upon his lips, 
goes into the house, drives his little bargain, and 
continues on his road. 

So for months, often for years; he wanders 
about the country, wearing his hat on the back 
of his head, twisting his beard in his fingers as he 
ponders some magnificent scheme to gain four 
ha’pence, selling odds and ends and goods not 
worth a farthing, observing everything, reckoning 

[28] 


HE el HOR AY OPRVHOU NE ALOU 


up in his mind the value of the clothes of every 
passer-by. He is a merchant of the wind that 
blows, and the rumours in the air, accosting every 
one he sees with unvarying optimism; indomitable 
dreamer; knavish, yet honest; starving with hun- 
ger in pursuit of a fortune; his livelihood daily 
dependent on chance, he bears from village to 
village the bitter irony of the contrast between his 
claim to be a child of the Elect People and his 
actual condition of a beggar, a pack-bearer, a 
seller of rags. He suffers indeed in the immensity 
of the gulf between his desires and his indigence, 
but he never loses hope, for the vital essence of 
such lives as his is not so much the success they 
may attain, amazing as that often is, but rather 
something fantastic, unlooked for, abnormal, in 
short, a miracle, the perpetual miracle of the Jew. 

And the miracle is always happening. The 
whistling Jew has scraped together some money. 
And there he is, setting up as a petty tradesman 
in some village such as Hounfalou, dealing in 
wood or in cloth perhaps, or buying furs or geld- 
ing cattle; he is good at all trades. He is zealous 
at his work, he pays his debts scrupulously, and 
his business increases. No one refuses credit to 
a man like that; he may borrow in fact where 
he will. For two or three years, until he has in- 
spired confidence, he pays every quarter with great 
punctuality. The lender advances a larger sum. 


[29] 


THE OS'HiAD OW SOI DE OC ROIS 


The Jew becomes more and more pious, appeals 
more frequently to the Thora, attends more assid- 
uously than ever in the synagogue. “Come now, 
God of Justice! It is time to fulfil Thy promises! 
Turn not a deaf ear to my voice!” And then it 
is that the Eternal shows unto His servant the 
strength of His arm. The insured shop is burnt 
down; or a bankruptcy well managed leaves him 
in possession of the ten thousand francs which a 
trader must have, to be honest. 

Honest! What a stupid word! Has he ever 
been otherwise? Has he injured his neighbour?’ 
What signifies to a Jew of Galicia, or of Bels or 
Zada-Gara, that society that insured his business, 
or that firm in Buda-Pesth which granted him a 
loan? What matters it to him what harm he does 
to those unknown people, that body of share- 
holders, nameless members of a joint-stock com- 
pany? Are they real living men whom a Jew 
from the depths of Poland can take into con- 
sideration? Is he a social being? Has he any 
conception of the meaning of citizenship? How 
in the world should any such extraordinary no- 
tions as that of a duty to society get into his 
head? 

And so he enters into the Land of Canaan. 
His affairs have prospered, and he buys land. 
God in His providence has placed at his side the 
Amalekite in the shape of some thriftless peasant 


[30] 


fe HOR ATOR GH OUN FA DOU 


or headman of a village, who sells him his prop- 
erty to make merry with the proceeds. Field after 
field and forest after forest he buys up their 
estates. At the end of the second generation, 
often in a yet shorter time, his sons have estab- 
lished themselves in New York, in London, or in 
Paris. They are people of importance. They 
wear gold chains upon their waistcoats and gold- 
rimmed glasses upon their noses; and if you talk 
to them of the little village of Hounfalou and 
describe the life there they will gaze at you and 
say: “How curious!” 

For the final miracle from Heaven is accom- 
plished. They do not even remember! 


Two days later, all the Jews of Hounfalou, men, 
women and children, were gathered before the 
door of Reb Amram Trebitz, to witness the de- 
parture of the delegate of the Community. 

The lean and long-bodied men, gesticulating and 
loquacious, their ringlets perpetually dangling 
against their hollow cheeks, were pressing round 
the carriage, examining the straps and the cords 
which harnessed the one horse to the pole. And 
around the beast’s thin flanks there flew, like a 
buzzing swarm of flies, jokes in which nonsense 
and religion intermingled, and brought to the 
corners of those sensual lips and those eager eyes, 
not the coarse laugh of the peasant, but the 


[31] 


THE “SHADOW “OF MDHIETG ROSS 


grimace of the man who catches in its flight some 
malicious innuendo. 

Even a Jew who has put on one side for the 
poor the tenth part of his income, even a Jew 
who is going to visit the great miracle-working 
Rabbi and to order a Thora, even he is not immune 
from the jests of his tribe. Which among these 
devout persons would have dared to say aloud 
that Reb Amram Trebitz had not put aside for 
the poor the sum that the Law prescribes? But 
which of them really believed it? And the buf- 
foon, Nokhem Patzer, made every one laugh by 
saying that Amram’s horse was as pious as his 
master, that it stopped of its own accord when 
Amram said his prayers, and that, like the mule 
of the famous Rabbi Phineas ben Jahir, it re- 
fused its feed of oats if the tenth part had not 
been taken away for the poor. 

The women, whose figures through excessive 
fatness and many childbirths had lost all former 
grace, stood in a group apart that they might 
not defile the equipage by their unclean touch. 
The brightness of their eyes alone gave a passing 
animation to their heavy and regular features. 
Old, or prematurely aged, they had for the most 
part that striking ugliness in which a vanished 
beauty is yet traceable; and their appearance was 
not improved by the fact that instead of hair 
they wore on their clean-shaven skulls a sort of 

[32] 


MER ERA O R'AO/E MHOIU/N: FA LOU 


quilting or peruke of black and brown satin, 
trimmed with bows of ribbon and a few imitation 
pearls. 

A crowd of children was playing around them, 
scrambling into the cart and pushing under the 
tarpaulin cover. Some of them were dressed like 
the little Christian boys in jackets and breeches, 
but many of them wore already the funniest little 
black Jewish frocks fashioned out of cast-off pa- 
ternal garments. Their tzitziss—a sort of scapu- 
lary made of two large squares of stuff from the 
four corners of which hung long white fringes— 
gradually emerged from beneath their upper gar- 
ments as they played, and even, with a few of 
the most untidy, floated wide over their shoulders. 
The long ringlets which, in obedience to the ritual 
law, must never be cut—black, fair, or reddish, 
enframed their delicate faces, giving to their young 
countenances the charm of natural beauty and 
the symbol of religion. 

It seemed strange that these attractive little 
creatures should one day become those gesticu- 
lating, garrulous, sordid men and women, that 
their sweet faces should acquire those expressions 
of restlessness and anxiety, that their light, danc- 
ing figures should be transformed into those long, 
hollow-chested, stooping, pot-bellied scarecrow 
shapes. Yet, observing them more closely for a 
moment, one marvelled no longer at the change. 

[33] 


THE SHADOW OR SDEHEMG ROSS 


One discerned in the faces of most of them some- 
thing too sharp and precocious, too early ripe 
and already faded, too much excitability and 
quickness, a twitching of the muscles, a worn look, 
and symptoms of fatigue and exhaustion. There 
was too much passion and exuberance of life in 
those fine flashing eyes and bright red lips. The 
long-past centuries had left upon their too finely 
cut features an inexpressible weariness such as 1s 
never seen except among children of the most 
ancient civilizations. 

A few paces away were some Hungarian peas- 
ants, dressed in their summer costumes, which 
consisted of white linen breeches showing their 
bare legs, a short jacket with loose, hanging 
sleeves like the dew-laps of oxen, and a round 
hat smartly trimmed with a flower. They stood 
puffing leisurely at their pipes and gazing at the 
troop of black-clothed Jews who, in spite of the 
gloom of their sad-coloured garments, gave by 
their exuberance, the vivacity of their voices and 
the quick changes of expression in their faces an 
extraordinary impression of life, or rather of al- 
most sinister liveliness. The very composure of 
the peasants seemed a sarcastic comment on the 
scene. 

At length Amram himself appeared on the 
threshold of his door. He was magnificent to be- 
hold in his Sabbath clothes. His black caftan 

[34] 


THE THORA OF HOUNFALOU 


shone not only with the brilliance of silk but also 
with the brightness of much wear; his grizzled 
locks hung down from under a velvet cap which 
was encircled by thirteen narrow bands of fur. 
Round his neck he had tied the scarf which indi- 
cated that its wearer was on pilgrimage to the 
miraculous Rabbi. Half emerging from his huge 
and swollen pocket were a checked handkerchief 
and the nose of the bottle holding water for pri- 
vate ablutions, which no good Jew must ever 
neglect on a journey. 

There was a general rush in his direction, as 
though he had been the great Rabbi himself, a 
screaming uproar of voices, a torrent of words 
and messages entrusted to him. Every one 
slipped into his hand a silver florin or two, as 
a gift to the Zadik and a reminder of the affair 
for which the Rabbi’s miraculous intervention was 
desired. One had a lawsuit on hand, another a 
cow which had ceased to give milk, another a wife 
who was childless, another had found his vinegar 
gone bad. Not one of them doubted that, thanks 
to the Zadik of Bels, his lawsuit would be gained, 
his cow would give milk, his wife would bear chil- 
dren, and the vinegar would satisfy his customers. 
He—with kindly and dignified air and a coun- 
tenance filled with pride in the mission entrusted 
to him—slipped the florins into his pocket, 
vowing to forget nothing and to bring good 

[3] 


THE SHADOW (OF AMHE CROSS 


fortune for every one back with him in his cart. 

During this time the old Hannah, his wife, and 
Guitelé, his daughter, were packing in the car- 
riage the traveller’s cloak, and some bread, brandy, 
and hard-boiled eggs for his provisions. He in his 
turn examined the harness, assured himself that 
there was sufficient straw beneath the tarpaulin 
for him to lie and sleep on, and then returned to 
kiss the sacred mezuzzah on the door-post. 

On the threshold the old Hannah pushed to- 
wards him Guitelé, a girl still wearing her beau- 
tiful dark hair which the stern marriage law 
would one day require to be shorn. 

“Give her thy blessing,” she said. 

And she instantly covered their daughter’s head 
with her apron, for in those distant Jewish com- 
munities a Jew must never touch the hair of a 
woman even though she should be his own child. 
Amram placed his long hand, which the labour 
of many generations of his fathers had not 
coarsened, over the old woman’s apron. 

“And do not forget,’ she added in an under- 
tone, “that she will soon be seventeen.” 

This, to put it in plain terms, was a hint to the 
traveller that it was time for the Zadik of Bels 
to take steps towards obtaining from the Eternal 
the favour of a husband for Guitelé. 

The young girl took her father’s hand and 
raised it to her lips. Old Hannah did likewise. 

[36] 


Pores) OR AR OPEL OIUENIE/ A LOU 


Amram kissed the zinc phylactery, climbed into 
the cart and called out to the Jews: “Besit- 
chem!” 

A hundred voices answered, giving him the 
blessing appropriate to a iourney. “May God 
bless thee and keep thee! May His face shine 
upon thee! May He give thee peace. Amen.” 

A smart cut of the whip set the horse trotting 
off in triumphant departure. The Jewesses all 
drew together at one side that the traveller might 
not set out driving between two rows of women 
—this being of bad omen—and also that the car- 
riage might not be made unclean by brushing 
against the dress of one of them. The troop of 
children ran behind, looking, in their round hats, 
like a party of gnomes escaped from the forest. 

“There is the Bent Jew starting for Poland!” 
said the peasants, as they saw Reb Amram go 
by. They spoke of him by his nickname, for 
no peasant of Upper Hungary will ever call a Jew 
by his proper one, but they waved to him from 
behind the acacia trees a sincere and friendly 
good-bye. 

After passing the Tziganes’ houses at the end 
of the village, the road ran through cornfields 
where nothing was now left standing except the 
tall sunflowers from which the peasants make their 
oil. 

The Jewish children were still running in the 


[37] 


THE SHADOW OF ‘THE CROSS 


dust behind the cart, but as soon as they came 
in sight of the terrible Cross with the iron figure 
of Christ which stood at the entrance of the 
forest they prudently abandoned the chase and 
returned to play in the cool shade of the syna- 
gogue. 

Amram passed before the Cross, and as he passed 
he spat; he turned away his head; he pronounced 
the ritual formula: “Cursed be thou who madest 
a new religion!” Then from the pocket of his 
caftan he drew forth his book of psalms and be- 
gan the prayers appointed for a journey. “In the 
name of the Eternal, the God of Israel, let the 
angel Michael be ever on my right hand, Gabriel 
on my left, Uriel before me, Raphael behind me, 
and over my head the majesty of the Almighty.” 

So the carriage, the horse and the Jew all van- 
ished in the Carpathian forest. 


[38] 


GHA Pel, toler [ak 
THE RABBI AND HIS MIRACLES 
(“The Jews seek after a sign”) 


From Lemberg to Cracow there stretches, be- 
neath its grey and heavy sky, the melancholy 
plain of Poland, a landscape of rain-sodden 
meadows, desolate pools, tracts of mud and 
mournful woods of fragile acacias, delicate shiv- 
ering silver birches, and fir trees whose drooping 
branches seem even in the height of summer to 
be always waiting for the snow. Light wagons 
drawn by small horses go jolting through the deep 
mire of field-roads which lead apparently to no- 
where. Here and there, at long intervals, one 
comes upon a few thatched houses plastered over 
in vivid colours half washed off by rain; or per- 
haps some straw-mill under a rotting roof sup- 
ported on four posts; and at every cross-road and 
on every low mound that varies the monotony 
of the plain there stands a high, roughly fashioned 
Cross with its Christ of painted sheet-iron. These 
tall crucifixes, visible symbols of solitude and 


[39] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


patience, cast their sorrowful spell over all this 
land of Galicia. This country is their country, 
they dominate, they populate, they possess it; 
they are its soul. It is as if that low and rainy 
sky was upheld from the earth by those great out- 
stretched arms alone. 

Is it the God of long-past ages, the God of 
Abraham, of Israel, and Moses, Who spoke from 
Horeb and from Sinai, is it He Who in this Chris- 
tian country, this very Calvary and endless Way 
of the Cross, has planted the unchanging type 
of that ancient people out of Egypt and Babylon, 
to preserve for ever among strangers their own 
customs, thoughts and feelings? Or is it the God 
of the New Covenant Who has decreed that there 
shall dwell here for ever beside these Crosses those 
who of old time were the witnesses of His Passion? 

Be that as it may, the Jews are here in vast 
numbers: four or five million, or perhaps six mil- 
lion Jews, for a population so continually chang- 
ing and wandering can scarcely be accurately 
numbered. They are poor as Job, their life as 
precarious and unstable as that of the water- 
spider on the pool; all traffic, all petty industries 
among the Christian peasants, Polish or Ru- 
thenian, are in their hands; and here in their 
provincial Ghettos they carry on an existence so 
alien, so strange, so regulated in its every detail 
according to the strictest Hebrew law, that it 


[40] 


THE RABBI AND HIS MIRACLES 


still presents the unchanging picture of life as it 
was in a suburb of Jerusalem two thousand years 
ago. 

Among many another small, unknown town, 
and looking to the rest of the world as dirty, as 
verminous and insignificant as they, the holy place 
of Bels shines forth to all these Eastern eyes like 
a palm tree in the desert. Every year, at the time 
of the great festivals, pilgrims from the remote 
parts of Russia, Austria, Germany, Rumania, and 
Upper Hungary, gather beside that marshy 
meadow and that lonely river, seeking the miracle- 
dealing Rabbi. 

In the soul of these practical business-like He- 
brews, to whom the buying and selling of a rabbit- 
skin, or an old hide, or a worn-out coat, 1s a 
matter for profoundest calculation and cunning, 
there is an irrepressible craving for something mar- 
vellous, miraculous, something, in short, of the 
other world. That continual agitation and rest- 
lessness of hands and faces is a sign not only of 
the feverish temperament of their race, but of a 
fanatical enthusiasm, an excitability, a wild de- 
sire for something new, astonishing and impossible 
which, even more than the love of lucre, is char- 
acteristic of these Jews. Consequently they never 
rest content with their present condition, but 
escape from it when they can, sometimes to seek 
enormous fortunes in our Western towns, or even 


[41] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


in America, sometimes to confide blindly in the 
promise of a Zadik who will change everything 
for them by a word. 

The pursuit of vast wealth and the appeal to 
the miraculous have the origin in one and the 
same sentiment, the Israelite’s eternal hope of en- 
tering the Promised Land; it is the ancient in- 
stinct of his race persuading each individual that 
his dreams and his imaginations are on the point 
of being realized. The inexhaustible strength of 
that hope which guided the Patriarchs, Abraham, 
Jacob, and Moses, has lost nothing of its antique 
power. The same insatiable desire which led Je- 
hovah’s people of old time in the deserts of 
Arabia leads these fanatic multitudes to-day, in 
crowded trains and carriages to this poor town 
of Bels to see the Rabbi who can work miracles. 

In this month of September, on the eve of the 
first of Tischri and the festivals of Rosch Hascha- 
nah which mark the beginning of the Jewish year, 
a crowd of pilgrims arrived in the little Galician 
station. Each carrying the enormous bundle with 
which a Jew always burdens himself when he 
travels, trailing their caftans in the mud, or, 
like old women, holding them up in both hands, 
they streamed out, passing in line before the great 
figure of the Christ set up opposite the station. 
Chattering and gesticulating all the while, they 
walked along the few hundred yards of broken 

[42] 


DEEE R A BE TI SAN Di HS) MI R ACIL'ES 


road which leads from the railway to the town, 
which consists of a few hundred low houses on 
the level of the meadow beside the undyked 
river. 

It had been raining all the night. The narrow 
windows, piled up with packets of poor village 
groceries, seemed to be shrinking back in a vain 
attempt to find shelter behind the high pathways 
made of planks in front of the houses. The mud, 
the dreadful mud, had crept up the rails and lay 
thick upon the boards, at first sloppy and then 
caked hard, until these wooden paths became as 
miry as the roads. It penetrated into the shops 
and spread its own dampness and dirtiness over 
the crude-coloured woollen and cotton stuffs, the 
hides, the furs, the eatables and even over the 
coloured sweets in the glass Jars. 

In the market-place, between the wooden ar- 
cades which form a sort of cloister round a swamp 
of mud, the carriages of those pilgrims who had 
come from a long distance by road were grouped 
like a camp of savages. Sunk in mud to the axle, 
they served by day as mangers for the horses 
and by night as a refuge for their owners. The 
noisy crowd of Kachlavniks, poor officious 
wretches who make a living out of the pilgrims, 
hovered about them; children played under the 
tarpaulins; flocks of geese marched gravely about 
among the wheels of the carts, and their daz- 


[43] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


zling whiteness seemed the one thing spotless 
amid the filth. 

But the true Bels, the sacred place, is neither 
the market-square nor the caravansary. Close by 
it is another square, equally muddy and crossed 
from one side to the other by the same wooden 
pathways. But here are neither carts nor shops 
nor any secular houses. On the right is the house 
of the Zadik which, with its modern air and its 
two stories, looks strangely out of place among 
these others built on the level of the ground and 
oozing damp through all their crumbling bricks. 
At the farther end is the synagogue, whose great 
walls, without windows; are splashed at the foot 
by waves of mud, and crowned with fantastic 
crenellated ornament. On the other side is the 
bethamidrasch, a kind of hall dedicated as library, 
refectory and dormitory in one, to the use of the 
pious multitudes. And on the fourth side of the 
great square formed by these buildings, between 
which wide silent spaces of green and marshy 
meadow are visible, stands the Catholic church 
with its bulb-shaped steeple assuring to the peas- 
ant in the distant plains the presence of his God 
in the midst of this Jewish town. 

This town, though peopled solely by exiles from 
the East, is strangely unlike any village of Syria 
or Arabia. Every characteristic of those is here, 
as it were, reversed. Instead of dust and sand is 

[44] 


THE RABBI AND HIS MIRACLES 


mud, everlasting mud; overhead is no blue sky, 
but the low moving cloud; and in place of white 
floating burnouses are these sad, black robes, 
and boots clogged with the mud of winter. How 
should one dream of the East in a scene like this? 
In what Oriental country has one ever felt this 
menace of rain upon one’s head, this heaviness 
in one’s feet? In what Oriental land has one ever 
seen men with high bonnets of moth-eaten fur like 
these men? 

Over all things here is the breath of cold and 
misery. Yet here is this wonder of wonders, that 
no sooner shall you enter this land of Galicia than 
a sense of glowing heat from some far country 
shall strike you. It may be in the grace of the 
children, their beautiful eyes and their scarlet lips; 
in the soft massive figures of women; the majestic 
air of the old men; or something in their mobile 
countenances and the brilliance of those eyes giv- 
ing to these people an air of intelligence greater 
than they actually possess. You are in Poland 
no longer, but in Judea. Life has changed its 
colour and taken the sombre tints of the North. 
But the spirit which dwells here is not the soul 
of this cloud-wrapped country. The vital fire 
which gave it birth in the far East is inextinguish- 
able. Winter may follow winter, the snow may 
fall, rain pour in torrents, the mire grow deep in 
the market-place; but even as the plumage of 


[49] 


THE SHADOW OF VDHIE CROSS 


these geese who live in it can take no stain from 
the mud, so this poor village, in spite of all the 
power of the elements, remains yet a village of 
Palestine. No rain can dull the brightness of 
those quick-glancing, anxious or solemn eyes; all 
the mud of Poland may be heaped upon those 
boots and caftans; with the first sunbeams it dries 
into the dust of Judea, and those black, melan- 
choly caftans still recall visions of the sweeping 
robes of Esther or of Ahasuerus. 


When, at the end of a ten days’ journey, the 
delegate of the Jews of Hounfalou made his ap- 
pearance in the market-place, the whole tribe of 
Kachlavniks rushed toward his cart. One of 
them, jumping up beside Amram, settled himself 
upon the seat and proffered his services. Fifty 
kreutzers to keep guard over his carriage—five 
kreutzers and a glass of brandy to water his horse 
—twenty kreutzers to give it a rub down—ten to 
feed it—-six to take care of his overcoat—three 
to show him the way to the bath—two florins to 
introduce him to the miracle-working Rabbi. 
While talking he had seized the whip and with it 
he dealt out smart blows to his fellow-believers 
who were tugging at his caftan, trying to pull 
him down, while with the other hand he grasped 
the reins and steered the carriage in among the 
labyrinth of carts until presently its wheels, shafts, 


[46] 


Pub RAB BIVAND, HIS MPRACLES 


horse and all were so intermixed with other 
wheels, other shafts, other animals that it was 
impossible either to advance or recede, and the 
equipage became fixed in the mass of carriages 
like a ship among icebergs. 

Amram agreed, for the price of sixty kreutzers, 
to have his carriage guarded, his overcoat taken in 
charge and his horse cared for. Then, tucking up 
his fine silk caftan to his knees, he hurried through 
the mud to the house of the Zadik. 


In the Zadik’s house, from the worn brick steps 
of the landing with its broken iron rail, even to 
the end of a long dark passage leading to that 
mysterious chamber which held the miracle- 
working Rabbi, there was a seething mass of caf- 
tans, of boots, of moth-eaten bonnets, of beards 
and ringlets: a crush, a mob, a din altogether 
indescribable, poisoning the air with the odour of 
stale tobacco and damp underclothing. The as- 
sembly, shouting, spitting, gesticulating, pushing 
one against another in a frenzy of excitement, 
filled the spacious waiting-room; four secretaries, 
wearing the high kolbacks on their heads, sat 
at a white wooden table writing down in Hebrew 
the requests of the audience and the favours de- 
sired by the pilgrims; at the same time they re- 
ceived the offering which the suppliant made to 
the Rabbi. The most pious and the most worthy 

[47] 


T'HIEN 3S HA D'O W 0 Feat tbe CG ROSE 


vied with one another who should present the 
most magnificent donation, and the amount of. 
their gifts excited to madness the unashamed 
interest of the crowd. An ardent curiosity, almost 
feminine in its character, and a passion for any 
matter in which money is concerned, flamed in 
all eyes. 

From mouth to mouth flew words of admira- 
tion at each large sum which the rich pilgrims 
handed over to the secretaries that they might 
be admitted to the holy personage. At the mo- 
ment when Reb Amram penetrated into the hall, 
a fat merchant from Kieff had just presented 
eighteen times eighteen roubles (eighteen being a 
cabalistic number signifying life), and this lib- 
erality aroused among these poverty-stricken peo- 
ple, always hungry for occasions for enthusiasm 
or astonishment, so much pious and servile ad- 
miration that the donor was surrounded by a 
compact mass of pilgrims and a whole tribe of 
mendicants, imbeciles with red-rimmed eyes, and 
ragged urchins on the watch for halfpence. 

At the end of the long, dark passage which led 
to the Rabbi’s room the crowd was so dense that 
it offered the unprecedented spectacle of Jews 
haranguing one another without either waving 
their arms or shaking their fingers, or even pulling 
at their beards or their hair. Two secretaries, stal- 
wart fellows, defended the door by kicks and blows 

[48] 


THE RABBI AND HIS MIRACLES 


from the assaults of these crazy folk who would 
gladly have spent the whole of the day in that 
dark, evil-smelling hole, if they could but catch 
one glimpse through the half-opened door of the 
marvellous personage. 

Although Amram was burning with eagerness 
to approach the mysterious door, he could not for 
one moment hope to find a way through the 
thick caftaned, befurred, bearded and ringletted 
rampart. He was pushed, he was struck, he was 
bruised; and though, with devout energy, he made 
play with his elbows, he tried in vain for two 
hours to work himself a passage to the table 
where sat the secretaries in their kolbacks. It 
was of no use, night was falling. He had only 
just time for the ritual bath before the evening 
prayer. | 

Oh, that bath! in which since the morning hun- 
dreds of pilgrims had dipped themselves and had 
washed their snuff-stained handkerchiefs! That 
warm damp chamber, that black glutinous mud; 
that steaming fetid water, covered with a scum 
of grease, from out of which appeared shaven 
heads, limp locks, beards streaming and bodies 
reddened by a too long immersion! Those who 
had not yet bathed were undressing on the edge. 
Clad only in their beards and their ringlets, ema- 
ciated, stooping, white like linen, or rather like 
tallow, with bellies swollen and ruptured above 

[49] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


their too thin legs, they presented the most lam- 
entable spectacle of ill-proportioned bodies, in 
which all the life seemed concentrated in the lips 
and eyes. 

Before throwing themselves into the holy water 
they pronounced the ritual benediction, “Praise 
be to Thee, Eternal, our God, King of the Uni- 
verse, Who hast commanded us to plunge into the 
water of purification.” Then, with mouth neither 
open nor tightly shut, with fingers disjoined, and 
limbs outstretched that every part of the body 
might be touched by the cleansing water, they 
glided beneath the greasy surface. Amram in his 
turn dipped, reappeared steaming and crimson, 
donned his clothes, knotted round his waist the 
girdle which divides the noble upper parts of 
the body from the lower, and dirtier than when 
he entered it, left the ritual bath. 

Outside, it was already evening. This hour of 
the declining light is counted by the Jews as the 
ending of a day and the beginning of the next. 
It is not the sun but the moon which fixes for 
them the days and the seasons. With the first 
star there would presently dawn the five thousand 
six hundred and fiftieth New Year of the Hebrew 
calendar and the festival of Rosch Haschanah. 

From the bath, from the Zadik’s house and 
from the bethamidrasch, the black flock of Jews 
streamed out across the square towards the syna- 

[90] 


THE RABBI AND HIS MIRACLES 


gogue. It was a high, long building with heavy 
pillars of whitewashed brick; within it there was 
rising already a droning sound like the roaring of 
a forge. Great copper lustres, and wooden stands 
filled with lighted candles whose wax dipped down 
upon the caftans, illuminated the sombre, thickly- 
packed crowd, which in one solid mass swayed to 
and fro in the movement of prayer like a strange 
human harvest-field under the rising wind. Min- 
ute by minute the noise of groans and entreaties 
grew louder, until it seemed as though the wind 
had become on a sudden a furious tempest. The 
field bowed down and uplifted its innumerable 
heads, possessed by a spirit of frenzy. 

Here and there some pilgrim who, irritated by 
vermin, had scratched some part of his body, 
pushed his way, regardless of abuse, towards the 
water-butt in the entrance, or else towards the 
little tanks that made a green damp stain along 
all the length of the wall, hastening to dip his 
fingers and purify himself in the holy water from 
the unclean touch. Children slipped in and about 
among the high boots of the faithful, getting some 
sounding slaps as they passed. Yet nothing dis- 
turbed the deep rhythm of those wildly waving 
forms and those imploring voices. Sobs broke in 
upon the prayer; soon, indeed, many appeared to 
be praying no longer: they howled, they sobbed 
convulsively. A voice of anguish and lamenta- 


[51] 


THE SHADOW, OF «lL HEY GR OSs 


tion arose from the crowd, a cry in which were 
mingled the wailing of infancy, furious weeping, 
and groans of the dying. 

For the first day of the year is not a festival 
of hope, but of repentance and mourning. On 
that day all the Jews of the world must pass like 
sheep before the eyes of the Eternal Who holds 
open before Him three books: the Book of the 
Righteous, the Book of the Wicked, and the 
Book of those who are neither altogether righteous 
nor altogether wicked. The names of the just 
and of the unjust are written down at once, the 
first in the Book of Life, the others in the Book 
of Death. But the doom of those who are neither 
entirely just nor entirely unjust remains in sus- 
pense. God grants to them ten days more for 
repentance before their fate is decided. There- 
fore, during these ten days, prayers and suppli- 
cations must without ceasing be raised to Heaven 
with inexpressible earnestness until the great fast 
of Kippour when the divine verdict is irrevocably 
pronounced. 

For three hours longer the prayer was poured 
forth, three hours of wild lament, of unrestrained 
commination, of furious entreaty, three hours of 
pious mendicancy and appeals to the divine mercy, 
in which it seemed that the enraged suppliants 
would gain their salvation by violence from 
Heaven. 

[52] 


DAME R ADD De A NID Se MRR A GLUES 


Suddenly, as is the custom at the conclusion of 
these ceremonies, the holy frenzy was ended. 

The Rabbi’s servants brought into the syna- 
gogue tables, benches, plates and glasses for the 
feast which the Rabbi was giving to his followers; 
for even these festivals of repentance are accom- 
panied by the joy of a plentiful repast round a 
brightly lighted table. As soon as each table was 
laid the pilgrims rushed to get a place at it with 
the same passionate eagerness as they had lately 
shown when imploring the divine pardon. The 
scene of a few minutes before, when beneath this 
vaulted roof and the light of dying candles, 
prayers, lamentations and sobs had resounded, had 
vanished as if it had never been. 

When, to the number of more than two thou- 
sand, they were at last all seated before five or 
six hundred plates, the Zadik entered. He was 
preceded by four secretaries in kolbacks, making 
way for him through the press; after them came 
his eighteen sons, richly dressed in caftans of 
black silk, from the eldest who wore already the 
beard of an Isaiah, to the youngest whose age was 
about eight years. Lastly came the Zadik him- 
self, calm amid the bustle and the tumult of ac- 
clamation. 

He only, in that black crowd, was dressed in 
white. His hair, as white as dazzling snow, hung 
from beneath an enormous bonnet of fur, which 


[3] 


THE! SHADOW OPUNHELRGRO!SS 


covered his head almost to the level of his brows; 
his beard, which fell in two silver streams to his 
wide sash, was only distinguishable from the silk 
of his caftan by some faint tawny tints, recall- 
ing the colouring of his youth, and by the in- 
numerable grains of snuff which powdered it with 
black dots. But the most striking point in all 
that face, so admirable in regularity of feature 
and kingly majesty of expression, was an empty 
eye-socket, red with blood, and impossible to be- 
hold without a shudder. 

There was a perfect mellay around him as he 
came. Some even, who by free use of their fists 
had acquired a fifth share of a plate instantly 
abandoned it and rushed to touch his caftan. 
Those who were too far away, or who wished to 
keep possession of their places, stretched out a 
hand towards him and then kissed it as though 
he had been the Thora. 

Surrounded by his eighteen sons, he stood still 
beside the table reserved for him. One of his 
secretaries poured water over his hands from a 
golden ewer into a golden dish, while the rest 
of the faithful washed their fingers under the 
tables and dried them on their caftans. Then he 
pronounced the benediction for the day, seated 
himself, cut the bread, blessed it, and the feast- 
ing began. 

His servers set before him the first course of 

[54] 


THE'RABBI AND HIS MIRACLES 


the dinner, the fish ordained by tradition in the 
Hebrew feasts, a carp stuffed à la juive. With 
his fingers the Zadik took off a portion of the 
carp, placed it on his plate and put a mouthful 
to his lips; then, as though this one mouthful 
sufficed him, or as though he were superior to 
the weakness of hunger, with a lordly gesture he 
pushed away the fish and signed that he had 
finished. 

Instantly the faithful standing behind him flew 
at his plate to divide what remained there. They 
swallowed it as quickly as they could to incor- 
porate it with their own being, or else stuffed it 
into their pockets to give to their wives as a 
charm to bring good luck. Others who had not 
managed to seize a piece, flung themselves upon 
their more fortunate neighbours, trying to tear 
out of their mouths or their fingers those price- 
less scraps that the Zadik had sanctified. But 
he, impassive throughout the mellay, as if 
withdrawn into some distant sphere, appeared not 
even to see the battle raging over his plate. 

The servers, meanwhile, were presenting to the 
guests the same ritual dish, the same carp farcie 
à la juive. Black-nailed hands rummaged in the 
dishes, tore up the fish, and plunged into the 
sauce, which was soon running over caftans and 
beards. All at once there broke upon the hubbub 
of these two thousand hungry mouths a sound of 


[>>] 


TAHIEYS HAD O0 WE O0 ELEC RIOSS 


celestial voices. Instinctively one thought of 
heaven and angels, ready to imagine that the 
Eternal had recompensed the Jews for their weep- 
ing, by sending to them His musicians. 

It was a treat the Rabbi offered to his guests, 
a choir of Russian Jews chanting edifying songs 
to airs from the Russian Steppe. Those songs, 
those voices, carried with them for a moment into 
the midst of the pious carousal a fragrance from 
the prairie, from rivers and forests: something of 
youth, innocence and love, passing like a cool 
breeze through that hall polluted by the odour 
of burning tallow, of steaming food and unwashed 
humanity. 

When there was nothing more left of the fish 
but the bones and the heads, the servers set on 
the Zadik’s table the second course: a huge tureen 
brimming with vermicelli soup. This time also 
the Zadik put one spoonful to his lips, and with 
the same lordly and wearied gesture pushed back 
the soup. Once more the faithful standing be- 
hind him made a rush at his plate and the bat- 
tle raged anew with the same fury over the 
sticky vermicelli. 

It was the vermicelli now that was hanging 
from every finger, streaming down the beards and 
over the glazed cotton or the silk of the caftans. 
No one, as yet, had had anything to drink; 
throats were parched with thirst, and no wine had 


[56] 


tev RA BB ANID HibsSmM IR AGUIES 


appeared on the table. But the servers now came 
in Once more, carrying by their ear-like handles 
enormous pitchers capable of holding from fifteen 
to twenty quarts each; these they arranged in 
a pyramid in the middle of the hall. As each 
one was added to the pile a secretary announced 
in a loud voice what was the quantity of wine 
contained in the pitcher, from what country it 
came, and the name of the generous donor. “Such 
a one offers thirty bottles of a wine of Bessarabia 
which has been frozen several times!” “So and 
son ten bottles:of Tokaijrastyoursee here!;-950 
and so, fourteen bottles of Bordeaux: there they 
are!” 

All the wines of the world were cried in this 
strange proclamation: wines of France, Spanish 
wines, Italian wines, Rhine wines, Hungarian 
wines, wines from Greece and the Archipelago, 
wines from America and from far Australia; for 
where is the country in which there are no Jews? 
or 1s there any corner of the universe in which 
not one of the pilgrims in this hall could claim 
a relation or a friend? 

The crying being done, the secretary presented 
to the Zadik a flagon of wine and a golden goblet. 
The Rabbi pronounced the benediction for wine, 
and took one sip from the goblet; after which 
a drop of the sanctified liquid was poured into 
every pitcher and, as at the Marriage of Cana, 


[57] 


Hie" S HIAÏD OW, O0 FMMAIENCGIR OSs 


the enormous amphoras passed round the tables. 

Soon afterwards came a course of fowls. Beef 
followed, and then compôtes. The singers from 
Little Russia continued their lovely impassioned 
nightingale songs, but the clamour which had 
broken out on the arrival of the wine completely 
drowned their voices. It calmed down only after 
two or three hours, when one of the secretaries, 
standing on a table, gave notice of the benedic- 
tion for the conclusion of a meal. 

It was a custom of the Grand Rabbi of Bels 
that this benediction should be pronounced, not 
by himself, but by the youngest of his sons. At 
the old man’s side a child was now standing, a 
boy with crimson lips, dark eyes and brilliant, 
fine straight nose, beautifully arched eyebrows, 
and complexion warm and creamy like a flower 
in the sun. With his long auburn curls that clus- 
tered beside his delicate cheeks, he appeared in 
the crowd of black caftans like an enchanting 
vision of youth and grace, carrying away the mind 
into the long-distant past, to the time when far 
away in Judea there was seen a Child like this 
child, standing among the doctors. 

His little hand, in which some one had placed 
his father’s golden goblet, trembled with the emo- 
tion of speaking before all these people, and some 
of the wine brimmed over upon his fingers and 
dripped upon the tablecloth. Pressing round be- 

[98] 


eri, Rev BIB I GAPS Dy MEN RS VEER AC LIES 


hind him, the faithful reached out eagerly to dip 
their fingers in those precious drops which were 
as holy as if the Grand Rabbi himself had spilled 
them. In a scarce audible voice the child pro- 
nounced the appointed words: “With the permis- 
sion of my father and of the guests, let us praise 
Him to Whom we owe our subsistence.” In an 
outburst of enthusiasm the whole congregation 
fervently replied: “Praise be to Him to Whom 
we Owe our subsistence! Eternal, King of Kings, 
the God of Abraham and of Jacob, just and 
merciful Lord send to us blessing, salvation, glad- 
ness and plenty. Send to us the prophet Elijah 
of happy memory, our messenger of joy, of salva- 
tion and of comfort! Build again, and in our 
own time, the holy city of Sion. Praise be to 
Thee, Eternal, Who in Thy mercy wilt build again 
Jerusalem!” 

With these words, bawled out at their utmost 
force by two thousand half-intoxicated voices, 
the feast came to an end. It was past midnight. 

Satiated, for the time being, with food and 
prayer, the pilgrims dispersed. Some went to 
stretch themselves upon the straw of their car- 
riages, others to the inns and the private houses 
where they had beds, others again to the bethami- 
drasch. Many passed the night in the synagogue, 
lying on the tables or benches. Amram Trebitz 
had intended to return to his cart, but exhausted 


[59] 


TiH EMS) HAD OFW TO EMATIELE AGIRIDISS 


by his ten days’ journey, and by the prayers and 
the feasting, he let himself sink down against the 
wall near the tub of holy water, and fell asleep 
instantly. 


By six o’clock next morning the synagogue was 
filled once more with the clamour of prayer. But 
to-day the excited congregation was no longer a 
mass of black-robed figures; they were white, the 
white flock of the Lord’s fold. Over their mourn- 
ful “levites” they all wore the shirt which clothes 
them on the days of their marriage and of their 
burial. Their faces, according to the custom at 
morning prayer, were hidden in the white woollen 
taliss. Standing on the tables, still covered with 
the remains of the feast, the beadles were sum- 
moning such of the faithful as had paid for 
the honour of standing close beside the Thora 
during the reading of it. Each man listened to 
the portion of the Scripture he had paid for, then 
taking off his taliss and his shirt, went out to 
breathe the fresh air and to talk in the market- 
place, or to pass a little time in the house of 
the Zadik, or to dip in the ritual bath, perhaps 
for the fourth or fifth time since sunrise. 

Towards eleven o’clock, the reading being fin- 
ished, every one returned to the synagogue. The 
solemn hour was approaching when the Sofer 

[60] 


THE RABBI AND HIS MIRACLES 


must sound the hoarse notes of the ram’s horn 
which was blown first upon Mount Sinai amid 
lightnings and thunderings; for on that first day 
of the year, even as a shepherd calls his scattered 
sheep, the Holy of Holies (blessed be His name!) 
gathers together before Him the vast flock of His 
Jews. 

Distinguished by his tall figure among the Jews 
who were pressing around him, the great Sofer 
of Bels mounted to the almémor, the square plat- 
form like a pulpit in the centre of the synagogue, 
and with a wide sweep of his arm lifted the 
silver-mounted horn and set it to his lips. Im- 
mediately the vast building rang with wild notes, 
each prolonged to the utmost power of the human 
lungs, bellowings and roarings succeeding and re- 
peating one another without end, as if calling ever 
louder and farther some strayed sheep who had 
not heard. 

During this barbarian music shoulders were 
bowed and heads sank deeper under the muffling 
taliss, and for three hours the prayers continued 
with redoubled earnestness. 

But Amram was not praying any longer. From 
the moment he beheld the tall old man on the 
almémor he could not take his eyes away from 
him. 

“There he is, then!” he said to himself. ‘“Reb 

[61] 


SHE SHADOW OR SREP HOSS 


Eljé Lebowitz, the man whose breath can ter- 
rify Satan, and whose hand will copy the Thora 
of Hounfalou.” 

He continued to gaze at him, noting carefully 
in his memory how many times the holy per- 
sonage smote his breast, whether the blow of the 
fist on the caftan was audible or not, how quickly 
and how often he bowed himself, what were the 
modulations of his chanting, whether he prayed 
aloud or in an undertone, what gestures he made 
with his hands. And though little inclined as a 
rule to an attitude of reverence, he watched the old 
man at prayer with such intense emotion that 
he himself forgot either to pray or to groan. 

Since the banquet of the night before no one 
had yet eaten anything. At last, about three in 
the afternoon, the benches were brought in and 
the tables were laid. There was again a solemn 
entrance of the Rabbi, more quarrels over the 
scheraim, more crying of the wines, more songs, 
and more drunkenness. The September twilight 
was already falling rapidly in the synagogue. 
There remained only time sufficient to recite the 
two prayers of the afternoon and evening, with 
which every good Jew must consecrate his day. 
Tables and benches were pushed back against the 
wall, and a storm of supplications and groan- 
ings mounted once more towards the throne of 


1 The sanctified broken pieces left by the Rabbi. 
[62] 


THE RABBI AND HIS MIRACLES 


Adonai. When the tempest had at last died down 
the darkness of night had fallen. But the cere- 
monies of the day were not ended. 

In the house of the Zadik the Rabbi’s wife 
was standing, surrounded by great cases of Syrian 
fruits. She wore a robe of fur and silk, her close- 
cropped head was covered by a wig of dead-leaf 
coloured satin and crowned like that of a bar- 
barian idol by a marvellous diadem of diamonds 
and pearls. The pilgrims passed, or rather bolted, 
before her. To each one she handed a New Year's 
fruit, some fine fruit of the East, pomegranate, 
orange, or grape, and each as he received it said: 
“May a happy year be appointed to you!” 

When the cases were empty the Zadik himself 
appeared. The same good wishes greeted him, 
in a tremendous clamour of: “May a happy year 
be appointed to you!” and these words of bless- 
ing, repeated over and over again, followed him 
all the way to the synagogue, where the third 
ceremonial banquet of the festival was served. 

Still surrounded by his secretaries in their kol- 
backs and his eighteen sons, he seated himself at 
his table. The majority of the guests were still 
in a state of repletion after the feasting of the 
days before, but they ate, nevertheless, for the 
glory of the Eternal, and snatched as though they 
were famishing at every eatable morsel within 
their reach. 


[63] 


TALENS HA DOM “OP MNENE NOR 0 8 "ES 


All through the night and another day the old 
synagogue rang with prayers, with lamentations 
and with the joy of banquets. The festival only 
came to an end on the evening of the following 
day at the hour of the first star. Amram Trebitz 
was then at liberty to attend to the business which 
had brought him to Bels; he could visit the Rabbi, 
the worker of miracles, and order from Reb Eljé 
Lebowitz the five books of Moses bequeathed to 
his Community by the deeply-regretted Faibisch 
Ungerleider. 


However famous a Sofer may be for piety and 
accomplishment in his art, the copying of the law 
is not in itself sufficient to gain him a livelihood. 
Reb Eljé Lebowitz therefore combined with his 
pious industry a small commercial business in 
religious objects: the taliss of Berchet, the tzitziss 
of Colomea, Talmudic writings, doggerel books 
of devotion for women, and collections of legends 
were his stock-in-trade, besides lemons, pome- 
granates, grapes from Corinth, loulebs or palm 
leaves, myrtles, citrons from Corfu, all Eastern 
fruits recalling to the exiles the past days in Pal- 
estine; so that the Sofer’s house resembled at once 
an Oriental bazaar and a fruiterer’s shop. 

Beside a narrow window looking out into the 
miry lane was his desk, on which were neatly ar- 


[64] 


Poe RABE SAND Loe NOIR A GEE'S 


ranged his pens and his various inks; there the 
old man was at work once more after the tem- 
porary interruption of the festivals of Rosch 
Haschanah. His head was covered by the taliss 
embroidered with silver, the bracelets were wound 
about his left arm, and his long beard was hidden 
in a fold of the holy scarf, that not one hair 
should defile the sacred parchment by its unclean 
touch. 

When the Jew from Hounfalou, supported by 
Tobie Gold, the Kachlavnik who had charge of 
his carriage, pushed open the door of the house 
and entered the room, Reb Eljé did not turn his 
head. He was preparing to write the sacred name 
of Adonai, and before taking the pen reserved 
for the Name of the Lord, he was bending down 
to cleanse his hand in a pail at his right side, 
when in the mirror of the water he saw the heads 
of the two Jews leaning inquisitively towards him. 

Without seeming to perceive them, he finished 
washing his fingers, gave the appointed benedic- 
tion, wrote the dreaded Name, and then, laying 
down his pen: 

“Blessed be those who have entered,” he said. 

“Blessed be he whom we find in this place,” the 
Hungarian replied. 

“And whence comes the stranger?’ Reb Eljé 
Lebowitz went on, gazing at his guest with his pale 


[65] 


THE SHADOW OF ALDHE GROSS 


eyes, that looked as though they had been worn 
away by contemplation of the wonders related 
in the books of Moses. 

“From the village of Hounfalou in Hungary,” 
answered Tobie Gold, eager to put in his 
word. 

A shade of suspicion came into the Sofer’s eyes, 
for the Jews of Bels have small esteem for the 
Jews of Hungary, perverted as they are by the 
modern spirit and not infrequently preferring the 
Talmud before the Kabbala. 

“Ah, well then,” he said, with a touch of bitter- 
ness, “and the Sabbath, is it still the Sabbath 
over therer” 

“The Jew is everywhere a Jew,’ Amram an- 
swered with some heat, “and the Sabbath is 
everywhere the Sabbath.” 

“I did not mean to offend you,” replied the 
old man gently. “There are good Jews even in 
Hungary, and you have the beard of a good Jew.” 

Amram was opening his mouth to declare the 
object of his visit when again the Kachlavnik 
broke in: 

“He has come from Upper Hungary on pur- 
pose to order a Thora from you—that is, if the 
Rabbi Sofer does not ask too much money,” he 
added quickly. 

“The Book is always dear, my son,” answered 
Reb Eljé, taking off his taliss and folding it 

[66] 


ives WA BBL ANID) HPS NPR AC UES 


carefully to keep it apart from this profane con- 
versation. 

“No doubt,” retorted Tobie Gold, “but he who 
buys may reason with him who sells.” 

“If Gold can diminish the sacred Book by one 
letter,’ the old man replied sententiously, “I will 
diminish the price of the Thora by a florin.” 

“And how much does the Rabbi Sofer require?” 

“Six hundred florins.” 

“Six hundred florins, Rabbi! But no later than 
last week the price of calves went down again,” 
replied the impudent fellow, meaning that since 
the price of calves had been lowered parchment 
was cheaper. 

“It is not a question of calves!” Reb Amram 
cried impetuously. “Let not the Rabbi Sofer be 
angry at the words of the Kachlavnik! I know 
that when Reb Eljé inscribes a Thora its value 
is the double of what he demands. The Com- 
munity of Hounfalou has placed in my hands 
three times one hundred and eighty florins for 
the purchase of a Thora. Not one florin more 
and not one florin less must I deliver to the 
POLeL: 

“That is talking like a good Jew,” said Reb 
Eljé Lebowitz. And, calling his wife, he bade her 
bring out the little glasses and the brandy. 

A woman, beautiful once perhaps, but in her 
old age no longer so, wearing a satin bonnet which 

[67] 


A HEX. SHIA DOW. OS EF Be CO Ss 


looked as though it were glued to her temples, 
brought spiced bread and corn-brandy in which 
leaves of celery had been steeped. The three men 
lifted their glasses to the level of the eyes and gave 
the benediction, ‘Blessed be Thou, Eternal, our 
God Who hast created all things by Thy word.” 
Then the Sofer said: “For life!” and the others 
answered: “For good and peaceful life.” And 
the bargain was concluded. 

As they went out into the lane they passed a 
thin, pale young man, with stooping shoulders 
and eyelids reddened for want of sleep. Such 
types are very common among his nation in Po- 
land. They are some of life’s failures, one would 
say, and yet with advancing years become, as if 
by miracle, such aged men with the air of 
patriarchs and prophets as Rembrandt loved to 
paint. It is one of the mysteries of their race. 
Their children are divine, their old men almost 
sublime, and their adults hideous. This man, 
whose red hair hung down over his hollow cheeks 
to a still ragged and youthful beard, shuffled past 
through the mud on his abnormally long feet. 

“The son of the Rabbi Sofer!” Gold said to 
his companion. “A jewel of learning! A pearl 
of virtue! A treasure in a family!” 

And, noticing that at these words the Hun- 
garian turned to throw a glance at the lad, an 


[68] 


THE RABBI AND HIS MIRACLES 


idea quite naturally occurred to him: the Sofer 
had a son, the Hungarian had, perhaps, a daugh- 
ter; then, taking in one stride (an easy matter 
to a Jew!) the step between hypothesis and cer- 
tainty, reality and desire: 

“With the rich dowry that Reb Amram Trebitz 
will give to his daughter,’ he said, clutching at 
his companion by his caftan, “the son of Reb 
Eljé would be a splendid match.” 

“Supposing my daughter had five hundred 
florins?” replied the Jew from Hounfalou. 

“Five hundred florins is a round sum,” said 
Gold, pulling at his beard. “But the Rabbi Sofer 
is plous among the pious! His son will shine as 
a star in the house of his father-in-law.” 

Accustomed, in the course of business, to the 
role of negotiator of marriages, he proceeded with 
gusto in this lyric style to prove that every cir- 
cumstance contributed to render pleasing to the 
Eternal the union of this young man of Bels whom 
he scarcely knew with the Hungarian girl of 
whom he knew less. Then, in a more business- 
like tone, he asked: 

“How much will Amram give me if I get the 
dowry reduced?” 

“Three per cent.” replied the other, who had 
had time during all this eloquence to consider 
how he stood to lose or gain in the affair. 


[69] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


“Mazel tov! It’s done! Nothing is impossible 
to Gold! All that he undertakes prospers. I’m 
going to speak to the Rabbi.” 

With a motion of his thumb he pushed his hat 
back on to the top of his head, like one struck 
with an idea, left Amram abruptly and re-entered 
the house of the Sofer. 

“Rabbi,” he said as he came in, without the 
least concern at disturbing the old man, who had 
put on his taliss again and resumed his work, 
“if I were not Tobie Gold but Eleazer in the 
Bible, and if the Rabbi were not Reb Eljé but 
Laban, the brother of Rebecca, what would he 
think of a marriage?” 

Without showing more surprise at so sudden 
a proposal, the Sofer replied: 

“T have not yet embraced thee,” alluding in his 
turn to the legend which tells how, when Eleazer 
came to demand from Laban the hand of Re- 
becca for Abraham’s son, Laban embraced the 
messenger in order to ascertain if he carried gold 
in his belt and pearls in his mouth. 

“The daughter of the Hungarian is not por- 
tionless,’ replied the Kachlavnik, understanding 
his meaning perfectly. “But if the Rabbi asks 
six hundred florins for a Thora, doubtless he will 
consider four hundred florins a handsome price 
for his son.” 


[70] 


ete RA BBY AN Dy ADSM I IR AGS 


“My son is worth five hundred florins,” said the 
old man placidly. 

“Five hundred florins, Rabbi! I should be opu- 
lent if I had in my pocket the difference between 
five hundred florins and the value of Reb Eljé’s 
son!” 

The old man made no other response than to 
bring from a cupboard his great feast-day machzor 
(or book of prayers), printed three hundred years 
ago in the earliest printing press of Lublin. On 
the first page it was recorded that Trumeté, the 
spouse of the Sofer Reb Guedalié Lebowitz, on 
the 18th day of Nissam in the year 2326, had 
given birth to a child who received the name of 
Samuel—to whom might God grant that he 
should be educated for the Thora, for religion, 
for the pious life and for the glory of the People 
of Israel! And so through three centuries from 
Sofer to Sofer the saintly genealogy continued 
down to this tall, red-eyed boy with his stoop- 
ing shoulders and long, bright red hair who was 
now sitting in a corner of the room copying 
mezuzzahs. 

“T know, I know!” cried the Kachlavnik. 
“The family of Reb Eljé is zzchutz (noble). But 
the Sofer, who is so wise and so pious, knows well 
that much money means much care. Four hun- 
dred florins, it’s a million! What can one do 


[71] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


with a fortune like that? It makes too much 
worry in a household. One never has a moment’s 
peace of mind. Does the Rabbi really ask three 
hundred and fifty florins? Let us give him three 
hundred florins, and his son will have so much 
trouble the less.” 

The tall sickly boy listened to this discourse 
with eyes downcast and fixed upon his work as 
though the matter concerned any one rather than 
himself. As for the old man, he let Tobie talk 
on without interruption. For his greatest wish 
was to place his son in the family of some pious 
Jew where he would not be obliged to take up 
a trade immediately, but, exempt from worldly 
cares, could perfect himself in study of the sacred 
books, the Kabbala and the Zohar, during a few 
years longer. In short, he desired for him that 
situation which is not unknown, doubtless, in 
any country of the world, but among the Jews 
of Eastern Europe is recognized as a profession 
equal to that of a boot-maker, a furrier, or an 
innkeeper, and is called “being a son-in-law.” 

“If the boy might go on studying,” he sighed, 
after a long silence, “we would reduce the sum. 
But in these days it is more and more uncommon 
to find a father who will support his son-in-law. 
And the daughters, especially in Hungary, are 
more greedy for money than for learning.” 

“The daughter of Amram is not of that sort!” 

[72] 


MERE RE N BIRT tA DCH ES NE LR AG LES 


cried Tobie Gold with the conviction of a father. 
“We will give two hundred and fifty florins, and 
the son of the Sofer shall be son-in-law for three 
years.” 

“If she is as you say, she is suitable,” said 
Reb Eljé gravely, passing his long hand slowly 
over his face as if seeking blindly for divine in- 
spiration. 

When he reopened his eyes, Tobie Gold was 
there no longer. He had already hurried off in 
pursuit of Amram. 


In the Zadik’s house, at the end of the long 
dark passage, before the door still guarded by 
the tall-hatted secretaries, a crowd was once more 
assembled; and in all hearts there was seething, 
as before, the same frantic anxiety, the same out- 
rageous queries, the same hunger for a miracle, 
and the same insensate hope in the Rabbi's power. 

Amid that delirious excitement he alone was 
calm and placid. Every now and then the sec- 
retaries’ stentorian voices would call out the name 
of the pilgrim whose turn it was to be admitted 
to his room. On each new arrival his red eye 
glared and his blue eye pierced into the deepest 
and most secret thoughts in the soul of the 
stranger who stood before him. 

One man says to him: “Rabbi, I have a 
shrewish wife. She makes my life unbearable; all 


[73] 


TH Er SHADOW OF THESCROSS 


the village mocks at me. When she begins 
screaming, people come out into the street and 
look on at the scene through the window. I can't 
stand it any longer. What must I do, great and 
holy Rabbi? Only last week again——” 

But the Zadik interrupted: 

“Return to thy house, my son, and say to those 
who come to look in at thy window or to listen 
at thy door that it is written in the Law: “Thou 
shalt not hearken unto the voice of the strange 
woman. ” 

Another comes to ask him to intercede with the 
Eternal that his son may be exempted from mili- 
tary service: not that the boy is wanting in 
courage, but in barracks how can a good Jew ob- 
serve his religious duties, the eighteen benedic- 
tions in the morning, the two prayers of the after- 
noon and evening, and the eating of the ritual 
meats? And, above all, O Master of the world, 
how shall he escape drill on the holy Sabbath 
day? 

The Rabbi listens, and says to him: 

“Has thy son planted a vine?” 

“No, great Zadik, he has not planted.” 

“Has he built a house?” 

“No, he has not builded.” 

“Has he taken a wife?” 

“Yes, great Rabbi, but she is dead.” 

“Then, my son, why hast thou come to me? 


[74] 


TIVE RABBIT AN DUH PS MT R ACTES 


Dost thou not know the passage, ‘When thou goest 
to war, where Moses has declared that he only 
shall be freed from obligation to serve who has 
planted a vine or has built a house or has taken to 
wife within the year a virgin of Israel?” 

Another comes to tell him of a grievous care 
that troubles him. He had wanted to pass into 
Russia, by contraband, ten thousand francs’ worth 
of porcelain that he had bought in Carlsbad. But, 
lo, he has fallen sick and is obliged to entrust his 
son with this delicate operation. This son, how- 
ever, is schemil, which means a maladroit and 
unlucky person. And if things turn out badly, 
he fears that the schemil will be thrown into 
prison and the merchandise confiscated. 

“Pear nothing!” says the Zadik. “The King 
Solomon has written: ‘God taketh the fools 
under His protection.’ ” 

So, one after another the pilgrims come before 
the Rabbi, who deals in miracles, and all cry to 
him in turn: “Give us children! Make the rain 
fall! Keep off the hail! Drive away the evil 
spirits! Deliver us from wicked thoughts! Bring 
to confusion the schemes of my neighbour! Send 
thither the Angel of Death! Save the woman in 
travail!” 

On all these fevered brows the Zadik of Bels 
scatters, like drops of cooling water, words of 
good sense appropriate to each case. Then, mak- 


[79] 


THES H ADiOVW NOIR LETTRE MGR ONSSS 


ing some concession to the folly of these people, 
he gives to every one a bit of parchment bearing 
one or two words of that mysterious Kabbala 
whose very obscurity enchants them, or else he 
permits them to rub against his caftan some coin, 
which will henceforth be to them a talisman far 
more precious than his words of wisdom or good 
counsel. 

At last the name of Amram Trebitz was sud- 
denly shouted out amid the agitated, long-haired 
and bearded crowd. At this summons some un- 
known force uplifted on its wings the publican 
of Hounfalou, carried him at one bound through 
the dense barrier of caftans which separated him 
from the door, and set him down, as if by a 
miracle, in the wondrous chamber. 

It was a small, bare, whitewashed room. Four 
secretaries in kolbacks stood against the wall. In 
the middle of the room, on a table covered with 
a dingy cloth marked with rings by coffee cups, 
there was a plate overflowing with bank-notes and 
gold and silver coins. For to this Zadik of Bels, 
whose house of brick is founded in this mud, his 
disciples every year bring more than a million 
marks, and his agent may well say that when he 
celebrates the marriages of his children money- 
orders by the pound weight are sent to him from 
all parts of the country. 

Behind the table, in an armchair covered with 


[76] 


Pree RA BIB PT AND UE SAME IR A C'LIE:S 


leather from which the horsehair stuffing was 
bursting in places, the Zadik was seated. 

But was this the scene which Amram saw? 

Though he was by no means of a mystic tem- 
perament and was accustomed, at one glance, to 
estimate the worth of a man, to guess and to cal- 
culate how much he had in his mind and in his 
pocket, he now beheld neither that dull, bare room, 
nor that soiled cloth, nor that wretched chair in 
which sat an old man who had lost one eye and 
whose beard was covered with snuff. He saw 
nothing but a kind of cloud in which there floated 
confusedly between the monstrous kolbacks a 
plate, an enormous plate heaped up with pieces of 
gold, and a being half divine, enveloped in a ra- 
diance which veiled him from bodily sight. It 
was not human thought, but the Shekinah, the 
Glory of God, which shone from that countenance; 
and the words which would fall from those lips 
had already for him that magic force possessed 
by certain groupings of letters and numbers in 
the Kabbala, whose mysterious power can govern 
men’s destinies and command the future. 

He came forward as if in a dream, touched the 
old man’s long hand with the tips of his fingers, 
and with a swift, Oriental gesture carried his 
fingers, sanctified by the miraculous touch of the 
Rabbi, to his lips. A secretary handed to the 
Zadik a paper which contained the request of 


[77] 


THES HIA DOW, (O.PAShH IE eC ROSS 


the pilgrim from Hounfalou and his offering 
folded inside it. The Zadik took the paper and 
with a disdainful gesture, without appearing even 
to see it, let the small gold coin fall out of its 
folds into the plate. 

At the clink of the gold Amram recovered his 
senses and was opening his mouth to declare his 
wishes and those of the other villagers of Houn- 
falou. Alas! the offering had been so small, the 
messenger so unimportant a person, and there 
were sO many people waiting at the door, that per- 
mission to speak was not granted to him. With 
one glance of his blue eye the Zadik stopped him 
short. 

“Go, my son,” he said. “I will pray for thee 
among all other Jews.” 

Already one of the secretaries had seized him 
by the shoulders. The innkeeper had only a mo- 
ment in which to fish out from his pocket a fine 
silver florin and to rub it against the Zadik’s 
sleeve that it might become an amulet of which 
he could say to the Jews of Hounfalou: “It has 
touched the hand of the great Rabbi of Bels!” 

Pushed forward by a vigorous arm, he was 
thrust out of the room and found himself in the 
corridor, radiant, exultant, perfectly assured in his 
own mind that the hopes of all his village would 
be fulfilled. Jacob’s cow would give milk again, 
Schmoul’s vinegar would satisfy the customers, 


[78] 


Tye RA RBI PAN D HIS EMITIR A C'L'E S 


Nokhem Patzer would win his lawsuit, the wife 
of Reb Jankele would be barren no longer, and 
he himself would find a husband for his daugh- 
ter Guitelé. 

At this moment Tobie Gold, who had been 
seeking him for an hour, caught sight of him 
among the Jews who thronged around him to 
hear what he had said to the Zadik and what the 
Zadik had replied to him. Working his way 
through the crowd by blows from his fists and 
his elbows, with his hat pushed back and his 
beard thrust forward, the Kachlavnik reached the 
Hungarian’s side. 

“Amram Trebitz may pronounce the benediction 
for one who hears good news,” he whispered. 

“Praise be to thee, Eternal, our God, King of 
the universe, Who art good and gracious!” the 
other murmured instantly. 

And making play with his elbows like the rest, 
he followed Tobie Gold as he would have followed 
an angel from the Lord. 


A few minutes later they were crossing the 
threshold of Reb Eljé Lebowitz. 

“May I say Mazel tov?” said Amram, as he 
entered, without scruple this time at interrupting 
the Sofer in his holy toil. 

“If the thing is from God, Mazel tov!” an- 
swered Reb Eljé, laying down his pen. 

[79] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


“It comes from God I am sure,” replied the 
Hungarian. “I promise two hundred florins; and 
for the space of three years the son of the Rabbi 
Sofer shall be son-in-law in the house of Am- 
ram Trebitz.” 

“The two hundred florins are two hundred and 
fifty,” the old man corrected him. 

“The two hundred and fifty are two hundred,” 
returned Reb Amram, “but the three years are 
three years. I shall keep the agreement to the 
very last day.” 

Then, turning to the young man who sat in a 
corner of the room, still copying his mezuzzahs, 
he said to him: 

“Mazel tov! 1 will feed thee for three years, 
and, if it please the Lord, thou shalt become in 
my house naguid among the naguidim, honoured 
among the honourable.” 

As he was speaking these words the wife of 
the Sofer came in; her features were convulsed 
with grief and her eyes filled with tears. 

“Eh!” said Reb Amram, “is then the wife of 
the Rabbi Sofer so sorry at the marriage of her 
boy ?” 

No, it was not the sad thought that her son 
was about to leave her that had brought tears 
to old Sarah’s eyes. But she had been busy in 
her kitchen, making the candles which on the 
Feast of Kippour, the Day of Pardon, must burn 

[80] 


THE RABBI AND HIS MIRACLES 


for twenty-four hours, and custom requires that, 
before laying the long wicks of plaited cotton in 
the hot wax, she must shed abundant tears over 
these wicks while thinking of her sins. 

“Besitchem! God keep you!” said she to the 
Jew of Hounfalou. 

Then she went back to her kitchen from whence 
she presently returned, bearing in her outstretched 
arms a great candle, still warm, a beautiful Candle 
of the Soul, which she gave to the stranger. 


[81] 


CHA XDATAE ROME HU 
TA HE MES LIEN AL Ol pd eo es 


That morning, with the first faint light of dawn, 
the holy village of Bels presented an extraor- 
dinary aspect. From under the wooden shelters 
against the small low houses there shone a strange 
illumination: and behind the yellow window- 
panes of every house the same curious scene was 
taking place. Jews and Jewesses were seated to- 
gether round tables upon which the lighted candles 
were burning. In their hands they held a barn- 
door fowl tied by its legs; they swung it above 
their heads, singed its wing-feathers in the candle- 
flame, and then threw it on the ground, having by 
this magic process loaded it with all the sins of 
Israel. 

By and by there appeared in the square a long 
file of women and children carrying all these cocks 
and hens, which if sin has any weight must have 
been heavy enough, that the sacrificer might kill 
them in the manner that the ritual ordains. 
Round the butcher at his sacred office blood was 
streaming down into the mud. The birds flut- 

[82] 


Bertin SE SLI TV AL AO ye Ror PPO DUR 


tered and shrieked, and some of them, though 
half dead, and their necks almost cut through, 
still squalled horribly and struggled to escape. 

The dying yells of the poor creatures were 
echoed in the synagogue by screams from the pil- 
grims who were being scourged by the beadles in 
punishment for such transgressions of the Law 
as they had committed in ignorance during the 
year. They crouched, kneeling on all-fours and 
calling out loudly as the blows fell upon them. 
Pain could not have wrung from them such cries: 
such screams could come only from remorse for 
their sins. 

Beaten, dripping with holy water, their ring- 
lets out of curl, and their hearts filled with glad- 
ness, they returned at last about three o’clock to 
their houses or to the Bethamidrasch. Here they 
would regale themselves upon the magic fowls, and 
prepare by a plentiful repast for the Fast of Kip- 
pour which would presently begin, and end 
only with the appearance of the first star next 
day. 

But how quickly a good feast is over! Too 
soon the night was approaching and they must 
rise from the table. All the Jews of Bels then re- 
paired to the synagogue, going, in spite of the 
falling rain, with their feet in slippers as it is com- 
manded, wearing their white shirts over their 
caftans, and carrying in their hands some queer 


[83] 


THEVS HAD OW) OF Gd the GO SS 


vessel, a broken pot or some old box or a sauce- 
pan or an oil can. 

To protect the feet of the worshippers from the 
dampness of the ground a litter of straw had 
been laid down in the synagogue, giving it the 
appearance of an immense stable. On the desks 
and on the benches and on the projections of 
the walls, wherever a box or a pot might be set, 
the faithful had placed their vessels, filled with 
earth or sawdust in which was firmly planted the 
enormous Kippour candle. It was like a forest 
on fire over the straw, a forest of candles sput- 
tering on all sides, and making tiny explosions 
each time that the flame reached a grain or two 
of salt deposited in the wicks by the tears of the 
pious housewives who had made them. All the 
congregation groaned and bowed down to the 
earth. The austere prayer, Al Eth, the prayer for 
sin, arose intermingled with sobs. 


“Eternal, our God, deign to pardon our sins; 

The sin we have committed through necessity or by 
our own desire; 

And that which we committed through wicked- 
ness; 

That which we committed through ignorance. 

The sin we have committed by our words; 

The sin we committed in public or in secret; 

And that which we committed deliberately and with 
cunning.” 


[84] 


RM ENT PES yO WA LEO Pa i LE REP OUR 


So the confession continues, frenzied and in- 
terminable. For although one may be a good 
Jew, celebrating the Sabbath regularly, and con- 
stant in attendance at the synagogue and the 
ritual bath, how can one be assured that on the 
great Day of Pardon the Master of the world 
will enter one’s name in the Book of the Living? 
Forced as we are in these unhappy times to dwell 
in exile among the Christian nations, we are be- 
set by a thousand occasions to transgress the 
Law, scarcely knowing what we do. How often, 
for example, as one passes through the villages 
buying eggs, or scrap-iron or geese, a peasant 
invites one to sit down at his table, and gives 
one pork! One accepts out of good nature; 
and that is a deadly sin. How often one drinks 
of wine that was not trodden by Jewish feet! 
And that is a deadly sin. How often, meaning 
no harm, one presses a little on the scales in 
which the peasant’s corn is being weighed! One 
is only cheating a Christian, and yet it is a deadly 
sin. 

Who, then, even among the most pious, can 
boast that he has never failed in one of those 
minute observances which regulate all Jewish life 
down to its smallest details: in birth, in death, 
from sunrise till sunset, ruling and ordering all 
one’s doings, whether with masters or with serv- 
ants, with children or animals, with one’s home 


[85] 


THE SHADOW OF ODHE CROSS 


or food or clothing, and making of every thought 
and every deed and almost every movement a 
religious action? 

The list of transgressions recited in impassioned 
monotonous tones was emphasized by heavy 
blows upon the breast, and the clenched fists of 
the multitude beat upon their caftans with a pow- 
erful, sombre and savage rhythm. 

The confession was followed by the psalms. 

The officiant recited one verse and the crowd 
of the faithful shouted out the next. So they 
went through the hundred and fifty Psalms of 
David, one moaning tearful voice dying away like 
a solitary sob through the synagogue, alternating 
with an outburst of yells that seemed to pour forth 
in haste to drown the sound of the sobbing. 

Until the middle of the night those ancient 
hymns of Judea were continued with vehement 
shouting and endless lamentations. After a time 
the frenzied worshippers, exhausted by fatigue, 
sank down one after another in the straw, where 
they settled themselves to sleep. By two in the 
morning the synagogue resounded like a barrack- 
room with snores amid the crackling sputter of 
the still burning candles. The thick waxen stems 
were bending in the heat and drooping over the 
prostrate bodies: drops of melted wax fell upon 
beards and caftans, and hung upon them like 
stalactites, and if by chance one dripped upon 


[86] 


RENE Sib WAG OO mele? OUR 


a hand or a face, a shriek of pain interrupted 
the snores. Here and there some still sleepless 
old men, with shaking heads and bodies untiringly 
rocking to and fro, went on humming the psalms, 
ramming their nostrils with snuff, beating time 
on their books, and raising their voices suddenly 
in some particularly moving verse; then they 
would fall into a doze, and wake again with a 
start to begin shouting once more. 

The chill of dawn wakened the sleepers. They 
sat up in the straw, rubbing their eyes, half 
blinded by the candle light, and then took their 
way to the ritual bath. They were not chattering 
any more; they hardly gesticulated at all. All 
of them seemed oppressed with a profound sense 
of desolation and infinite melancholy. It was 
not the sadness of early twilight, nor the night 
they had passed in that damp straw, nor the 
twinges of an empty stomach which had made 
them so mournful and so silent; it was the thought 
that when evening had come, and the bright star 
appeared in the sky now whitening in the dawn, 
God would have judged them irrevocably. 

All their faces were ghastly pale from the ef- 
fect of long fasting and fatigue in that foul air 
of unclean bodies and burnt wax. Now and then 
one of the faithful would fall down fainting in 
the straw, and the others would carry him out 
into the square. Some who felt themselves reel- 


[87] 


THE: SHAD OW. OF @ PREV CROSS 


ing held to their nostrils a little flask of ether, 
spreading the odour of a hospital in the musty 
atmosphere. But as the day wore on the prayers 
increased in intensity and fury. Before the di- 
vine sentence should be finally pronounced the 
Jews would fain throw into the judgment scales 
of the Lord a heaped-up weight of prayers and 
tears. Again and again the prayer of Al Eth 
broke out, and the blows on their chests sounded 
more hollow and more violent. Outside the day- 
light was fading, and a heavy rain had begun 
to fall. The cloud-laden sky was dark, and in 
the synagogue the dazzling candles, which had 
been burning for more than twenty hours, were 
no longer a forest, but a low shrubbery of light 
just above the level of the tables. Then at the 
ending of the day there arose the sublime chant 
of the prayer Neila. 


“Praise be to Thee, Eternal, from Whom cometh the 
night. 

Open to us the gates of heaven when the gates of the 
day are closing. 

In the moment when the night spreads out her veil 
and the day passes away, hear our prayers, O 
Lord. 

The daylight fails, the sun has set, Eternal! Open 
to us the doors of Thy dwelling. 

Have mercy, have mercy, Holy of Holies! Wipe out 
our misdeeds and our iniquities. 


[88] 


PB RPESTTIUVAL OF K NP POUR 
Let our sins vanish away like smoke; 


Let our faults disappear like a cloud; 
Let the sins of Thy elect be melted away like snow.” 


With tears and sobs they said the prayer of 
the dying: “Abinou Malkenou, our Father, our 
King,’ then the Schema Israel: ‘Hear, O Israel, 
the Lord our God is One God,” which is the daily 
prayer, the great prayer of the Jewish people. 
And hardly had the last words mounted through 
the gathering darkness to the throne of the Lord 
when there burst forth the sound of the Schofar’s 
trumpet. But this time he blew through the 
ram’s horn, not the oft-repeated brayings of the 
Day of Rasch Haschanah, but a single long 
drawn-out note, one last supreme appeal to the 
divine mercy. 

The sound of the horn ceased; God had pro- 
nounced sentence. But the rain was falling in 
torrents, and there was no star in heaven to mark 
that the festival was ended and the sublime mo- 
ment of pardon arrived when he who has been 
offended must forget his injuries, and all men are 
reconciled in the eternal mercy; those who were 
most excited, therefore, maintained that the fast 
was not yet over, that the Lord had not yet given 
judgment, for no star had yet appeared in the 
dark sky. So in the house of the Lord, instead 
of the calm scene of reconciliation, a furious bat- 


[89] 


TH E MSH AD O'W OF Tie FOROS. 


tle began between those who asserted that the 
end of Kippour had come and those who wished 
to prolong it. 

Even these fanatics, however, were at last forced 
to acknowledge that night had fallen. A few 
minutes later the Rabbi’s servants brought in the 
benches, the tables, the glasses, and the plates, 
and with this final banquet the holy village of 
Bels celebrated the end of the Terrible Days. 


At sunrise next morning the encampment of 
carts in the square was beginning to break up, 
and in the station, before the eyes of the great 
image of Christ, the pilgrims were taking by as- 
sault the trains which dispersed them far and 
wide to the distant towns and villages from 
whence they had come. Among the mingled 
sounds of cracking of whips, and creaking of cart 
wheels in the deep ruts of mud, Amram Trebitz 
was harnessing his horse. Poor beast, he too had 
been keeping the Fast of Kippour! Tobie Gold 
was not content with abstracting a tenth part of 
his food for the poor, but had taken the whole! 
And as Amram observed the sorry condition of 
his steed he wondered anxiously whether it would 
have the strength to carry both himself and his 
son-in-law to Hounfalou. 

When he drew up his carriage before the house 
of the Sofer he heard him saying to his son, “I 

[90] 


MERE ES VA Le ORAN KEP POUR 


will bestow on thee, my child, an incomparable 
treasure, a lantern of diamonds, the lantern of 
Gam Zou de 

Trebitz in some excitement listened attentively. 

Gam Zou, he knew, was a Talmudist, subtle 
among the subtle, a sage among the sages, who 
had acquired his name through his habit of say- 
ing on every occasion, “Gam zou letova! All’s 
well.” 

He was on a journey once, when night overtook 
him in a forest, and in order to frighten away the 
wild beasts he hung a lighted lantern round his 
ass’s neck. The wind blew out the candle, so the 
traveller said, “Gam zou!” and did not try to re- 
light it. Next morning as he set out again he 
found close by the place where he had slept two 
hapless merchants, plundered and murdered by 
robbers, to whom the light of their lanterns had 
revealed them. The traveller said, “Gam zou!” 
once more, and continued his journey. 

“T give thee,’ Reb Eljé was saying, “the lan- 
tern of Gam Zou. It is the lamp of wisdom. 
Even when extinguished, even when invisible, it 
will guide thee through life.” 

“Well spoken, Rabbi,’ said Amram, slightly 
disappointed, nevertheless, at the unsubstantial 
nature of the treasure. 

Old Sarah, meanwhile, was placing in the cart 
her son’s modest baggage, which, not including 


[91] 





THE S'HiAID O'W - OPA DH ENVICHROUIS'S 


the precious lantern, consisted of one “best” shirt, 
his Sabbath caftan, a taliss, and the tephilim care- 
fully wrapped in a chequered handkerchief. Reb 
Eljé blessed the travellers. Amram chucked at 
the cords which served as reins, and the carriage 
launched forth into the mud. 

Since the journeyings of Abraham and Jacob, 
how many sons of Israel have departed in like 
manner! How many wagons have carried Jewish 
children far away from their fathers and their 
mothers through the wide world! O Holy of 
Holies, blessed be Thou! Thou hast made them 
prosper among the strange people. May this one 
also perpetuate through all ages the names of 
Abraham and Isaac. May he multiply and in- 
crease among the nations! 

Thus the old Sofer prayed in his heart while the 
carriage moved off, carrying into Hungary the 
child whom perhaps he would never see again. In 
the little chamber, which suddenly appeared to 
him larger than it used to be, the parchment and 
the ink and goose-quill pens awaited him. 

He sat down at his table, wrapped himself in 
the taliss, and began copying the Thora of Houn- 
falou. 


[92] 


CHA PAR EI RAIN 
TIDE BOB AIRIN GE Ohi ot Hobs CO) Pb 


When they had traversed the melancholy plain 
of Poland, that great endless Way of the Cross 
through the marshes and the birch woods, Reb 
Amram and Hertz Wolf, the son of Reb Eljé 
Lebowitz, entered at last into the Carpathian 
forest, the abode of eagles, bears and chamois. 
Often at that season there is heard here the ring- 
ing blast of a horn, telling that some great Hun- 
garian or Polish lord is going hunting. There, 
too, may be seen the equipages of rich Israelites, 
who wear fine boots and aigrettes in their hats, 
and only in their secret hearts still resemble the 
poor Jews in caftans. 

The son of Reb Eljé had never seen mountains 
nor woods like these, with rushing streams in every 
direction and magic castles hidden in the depths 
of the forest. It must not be imagined, however, 
that he found any pleasure in contemplating 
these new scenes of nature, nor in the beautiful 
autumn already touched by the approach of win- 
ter and dying in these solitudes, nor in the quiet 


[93] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


lakes lying in the folds of the mountains, nor the 
sapphire and silver waterfalls, nor the dream 
castles suspended in the mist between earth and 
heaven. And not for one moment did his heart 
flutter or his eyes grow dim at the thoughts of 
love awaiting him. No, neither nature nor love 
has ever occupied the mind of a Jew of Poland 
or Upper Hungary. Hertz Wolf did not look at 
the woods. Hertz Wolf did not think about 
love. But he inquired anxiously of his fu- 
ture father-in-law how many Thoras the Com- 
munity possessed; he asked where they came from, 
and by whom they had been copied; whether there 
were many persons learned in the Law at Houn- 
falou; whether they assembled in the evenings 
to discuss the Talmudic questions, and whether 
the Talmud was preferred there to the Kabbala. 
At this discourse Reb Amram privately congratu- 
lated himself on giving his daughter so perfect 
a husband. 

It was when evening was approaching that they 
both felt most anxiety, for it was necessary then 
to meet eight other Jews with whom they might 
offer up the prayer of Min’ha, to which the Lord 
listens only if ten Jewish. mouths repeat it to- 
gether. But there are not many villages in this 
lonely country, and many a time the travellers 
would have been unheard by Adonai if the Holy 
of Holies (blessed may He be!) had not dis- 

[94] 


Ste BREAK EN Gig Riv aie. CU) P 


persed His Jews on all the roads of the world. 
In the forest they encountered pedlars wearing 
caftans, with packs on their backs; or merchants 
in a cart, seeking like themselves in the gather- 
ing dusk for companions to pray with them: 
“Schalem aleichem! Peace be with you.” “Alei- 
chem schalem! With you be peace!” they cried 
joyfully as they saw one another in the distance. 
And there, halting for a moment in the twilight 
of the woods, they all repeated the evening prayer. 

Thus conversing and praying, with eyes half 
shut to all around them, they arrived at Hounfa- 
lou. It was the season of the Feast of Taber- 
nacles. The Jews leave their houses for a whole 
week, and live in huts made of branches, in re- 
membrance of the forty years that Israel passed 
in the desert. The people of Hounfalou were 
camping in such lightly built shelters in their 
courtyards. The sound of the carriage drew them 
forth from their leafy dwellings, and when they 
recognized Reb Amram they welcomed him with 
transports of joy. The whole Community had al- 
ready been feeling the good effect of his journey 
and the beneficial intervention of the miracle- 
working Rabbi. Schwartz had won his lawsuit; 
the Sacrificer’s wife was cured; Schmoul’s vine- 
gar had improved; the cow of the “Melamed” 
(the schoolmaster) was giving twelve quarts a 
day. 

[951 


THE SHADOW (OF THE CROSS 


“Are you bringing us the Thora?” Reb Jankele 
shouted. 

And Amram, pointing to his future son-in-law, 
replied: “I am bringing you the Thora and the 
Talmud in person.” 


At the door of his house he got down from the 
wagon, and greeted his wife and daughter with a 
joyful “Schalem aleichem,” without embracing 
them, however, or even taking them by the hand; 
for on returning from so long a journey how can 
one tell whether a woman has lately performed 
the ceremonies of purification, without which it 
is not permissible to touch her even with the tips 
of one’s fingers? 

He kissed the mezuzzah, and then entered with 
Hertz Wolf into the hut of foliage, which was all 
hung with white cloths, and magnificently dec- 
orated with apples, nuts, lemons, grapes, many- 
coloured garlands and Lions of Judah, and stars 
cut out of gilt paper. 

Old Hannah set before the travellers some milk 
soup thickened with bran. Hertz Wolf ate with 
his eyes cast down and his long red ringlets al- 
most dipping in the soup, so much he feared to 
catch sight of Amram’s daughter. Is it not writ- 
ten in the Talmud, “He who casts even one glance 
at the little finger of a girl has sinned as a liber- 
tine’? 


[96] 


Woe BREAK DN GOUTTE (CUP 


And what need was there to look at her? She 
was a girl, she was a Jewess, was that not enoughr 
The choice of one’s bride is made only by the 
Master of the world, and this choice is fixed from 
all eternity. Whether her nose be thick or thin, 
her figure upright or crooked are details to which 
only a coarse peasant or unclean Tzigane would 
pay any attention. And what sensible man would 
care whether her hair is long or short, thick or 
thin, fair or dark, when immediately after the 
wedding her head will be shaved, and she'll put 
on a wig of quilted satin? 

“Ts it a husband for our daughter,’ old Han- 
nah asked herself as she looked at the stranger, 
“or some Yechiba bachour ! whom Amram has 
met on the road and brought along in his car- 
riage?” 

“Ts it a bridegroom for me?” Guitelé wondered: 
not that she was any more concerned with 
thoughts of love than the son of the Sofer, but 
because it is a shame to a woman and a sign of 
divine malediction if she grows old without a 
husband and children. 

When the soup was finished Reb Amram said 
to his wife, “Go to Solomon Schwartz, and ask 
him to let the bachour sleep in his house to-night.” 
Then at last they knew that this was no ordinary 
visitor; it was he whom the sacred Law forbids 

1 Student of a Talmudic school. 


[97] 


TE ES) ANA D O Wi O "EPP ATEN GR Ong ES 


to pass the night under the same roof with the 
young girl who is to become his bride. 

The old woman at once hurried off to neigh- 
bour Solomon. And Guitelé, having heard her 
fate, folded her hands over her stomach, and left 
the hut of branches without once glancing at the 
unknown man with whom she was to pass the 
rest of her life. 


The wedding was celebrated eight days after- 
wards. Once more the antique rite which has been 
repeated millions and millions of times was per- 
formed for the glory of the people of Israel. A 
pious Jew, wearing over his caftan the white shirt 
which will clothe him in the grave, and a young 
Jewess, with her beautiful black hair unfastened 
and floating over her shoulders, stood together 
under the marriage canopy. Seven times she 
stepped in a circle round her bridegroom; he put 
a gold ring upon her finger; they drank from the 
same cup to testify that they were united for life 
and for death, and once more the cup was ‘then 
broken in remembrance of the old days of 
mourning and of the fall of Jerusalem. 

Then, led by the violins, men and women in silk 
caftans and in satin perukes formed into the joy- 
ous procession of all weddings since the remotest 
ages. 

If there be any country in the world where 

[98] 


LAHIEVEB REA KONG O!ELETIH IE TI CUP 


marriage is unaccompanied by revelry, it is cer- 
tainly not here among these Jews, whose life is 
a series of violent alternations between fasting, 
ordained by law or by necessity, and feasting in 
their poor ritual banquets. 

With us, however, the conversation at a wed- 
ding will run upon affairs of the world or on gal- 
lantry, while the chief pleasure at these Hebrew 
nuptials is to engage in some senseless discussion 
of a problem in the Talmud, a fine “pilpoul” as 
they call it, such as might have been heard in the 
streets of Jerusalem in the days of Hillel and Reb 
Akiba. Then they forget everything, the tribu- 
lations of past centuries, as well as their troubles 
of yesterday and to-morrow. 

And in these endless debates they practise pas- 
sionately that subtle irony of theirs, that clever- 
ness in turning a question inside out in a thou- 
sand ways which makes them such formidable 
opponents when they direct against the beliefs of 
other nations that critical and argumentative spirit 
they have exercised so long in their remote vil- 
lages upon subjects which amaze us by their 
silliness. 

The servant had no sooner placed the soup 
tureen and the vermicelli on the table than Am- 
ram, wishing to give his son-in-law a chance of 
distinguishing himself, provided his guests with 
this problem. Supposing that one of them had 

[99] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


dropped into the soup tureen the little box of 
parchment which is worn on the forehead during 
prayer, could the soup be eatenr 

All fell upon this theme as greedily as they did 
upon the soup. Without pausing an instant in 
the business of eating, their voluble tongues shot 
forth fierce arguments across the table; heads were 
wagging, arms waved in the air, and all the black- 
nailed fingers bore their part in the action to 
uphold or to beat down an argument. 

Of course when an unclean article has contami- 
nated a dish, this dish may still serve as nourish- 
ment to a pious Jew, provided always that only 
one-sixtieth part of the unclean article has touched 
the food into which it has fallen. But is it right 
to apply this rule of the sixty parts to the box 
of parchment? and if right, is it possible? Who 
can estimate the quantity of perspiration accu- 
mulated in the box which one generation after 
another has worn while they prayed and sweated 
with it upon their foreheads? Besides, must the 
whole volume of the box be considered, or only 
the presumed volume of the perspiration with 
which it is imbued? 

While they were discussing this grave problem 
three old women led Guitelé from the festal hall, 
with her beautiful hair still loosely flowing over 
her shoulders. They made her sit down in a chair 
in the middle of the dust-heap, and snipping 

[100] 


HAE OR EAI K EN GW Olin sie Hik’ CU:E 


with their scissors brought the heavy locks fall- 
ing to her feet. Under their quick fingers her 
poor head soon became nothing but an ugly dark- 
coloured ball. 

But she looked not sadly at her long tresses 
strewn on the dust-heap. Instead of the lustrous 
braids that had framed her face the three old 
women placed on her head a wig of brown satin, 
such as pleases the Master of the world. Then, 
with a smiling countenance, delighted to be num- 
bered now among the married women of the vil- 
lage, Guitelé reappeared in the feast-room. 

The guests were still eagerly debating, and no 
one noticed her return. Hertz Wolf felt no more 
regret than any one else did for the sacrifice of 
her beautiful hair. Oh, wonderful people, im- 
passioned, insensible people of Israel! How many 
tongues you have mingled in your grotesque jar- 
gon, how many sentiments and how many ideas! 
And you have forgotten only one single word, one 
word that you might have found everywhere, in 
the East, in Germany, in Poland, in Spain, and 
even in your sacred books. The word that sig- 
nifies the love of man and woman you have neg- 
lected as a thing that your heart had no need 
for! 

Henceforward there will be one more Jew at 
Hounfalou to worship the Eternal. But some 
name must be found for this newcomer from 


[101] 


PHEW HIAD O0 WMO:FAATHIENCIRI0O SES 


Poland whom we shall meet every day in the 
village streets. There are plenty of names that 
would suit him, of course. We might call him 
the Red One, for his hair and his beard are the 
colour of fire; but that is the name of the Sac- 
rificer. We might call him the Fine Stranger, 
but that is the egg-collectors name; or the 
Stooper, but that is the name of his father-in- 
law. Ah, why trouble about it any longer? Just 
look at his feet; his name is there plain enough. 
He is no longer Hertz Wolf Lebowitz: he is the 
Jew-with-feet-that-reach-to-his-neck. 


[102] 


CHANTIER 
Pee Glib TPS OEM Hote Ge toh Ne AGEs 


Perhaps some day we shall see the Jew-with- 
feet-that-reach-to-his-neck following the trade of 
his father-in-law, hurrying from fair to fair, from 
village to village, from market to market, wearing 
his hat on the back of his head, and whistling at 
the doors to call out the housewives. Mean- 
while he is a son-in-law. While every one around 
him is busy, while Amram scours the country in 
his cart, and Guitelé pours out drink for the Hun- 
garian and the Tziganes, Hertz Wolf sits bent over 
the Talmud, the Kabbala, or the Zohar, hum- 
ming mysterious texts. Venerable indeed is Is- 
rael’s respect for piety and learning, and his un- 
dying remembrance of an eternal mission. Rare 
and pathetic idealism is this which can cause 
these starveling wretches in their remote Com- 
munities to prize the study of their sacred Books 
above gold itself! 

Not for one moment did it occur to Reb Am- 
ram that his son-in-law might help him in his 
trade. He had agreed to give him food and no 

[103] 


TIH By SoH AD O0  WMO FRA IEMONRUOESTS 


work for three years, and the thunderbolt of the 
Eternal would fall upon his house if he failed 
in his promise. Not for one moment did Guitelé 
feel it surprising that her husband did nothing in 
the house where she was toiling like a servant. 
What would all her exertions weigh in the bal- 
ance of the Holy of Holies against a single let- 
ter of the Law which her husband was studying? 
Was it not he alone who was really working? 
Was it not he alone who was hastening the com- 
ing of the Messiah and the kingdom of Jeru- 
salemr And since nothing is so exhausting as 
the study of the sacred texts, she was careful to 
help him always to the best pieces at dinner- 
time. 

Every one, therefore, would have been happy 
in the house of the Jew-with-feet-to-his-neck: 
Reb Amram because he was doing business, and 
his son-in-law because he was doing nothing, if 
the Holy of Holies (blessed be He!) had but 
deigned to look favourably upon poor Guitelé. 

“Master of the world,’ she moaned in her 
prayers twice daily, “why dost Thou leave me 
barren? Have I not always kept Thy Holy 
Commandments? Have I let one Saturday go 
by without lighting the Sabbath candles which are 
as pleasing to Thy heart as the great lights shin- 
ing in heaven? Have I ever sat beside my hus- 
band or even touched his caftan with my finger 


[104] 


Tete EonG roils OSE) Tiree TE RINAL 


when my body was unclean? Have I not always 
bathed at the appointed times in the water of 
purification? And when I bake the bread, have I 
ever failed to throw into the fire the morsel of 
dough which must be offered to Thee as first- 
fruits? Lord, have I not done all this? Why 
dost Thou leave me then without children?” 

“Gam zou letova!” said Hertz Wolf. “If the 
Lord left Abraham and Sarah, or Isaac and Re- 
becca so long without posterity, it was to call 
forth their prayers.” 

And he plunged into his books once more, and 
only broke off from his chanting and his sway- 
ing to and fro to go into the synagogue and 
there discuss for hours some points of the Law 
with the Sacrificer, the Melamed, or the Rabbi. 


So the days passed, marked by nothing but 
the returning festivals, and the funerals, marriages 
and circumcisions in the neighbours’ houses, until 
one day there arrived at Hounfalou a Jew in a 
clean caftan. 

He was one of the collectors whom the grand 
Zadik of Bels sends round into these mountain 
villages gathering contributions for the marriages 
of his daughters. He drew up his carriage at 
Amram’s tavern, and came into the house, carry- 
ing in his arms as carefully as if it were a baby 
a long wooden case. 


[105] 


AE 3S HEAD O'W NO Pi Ee CR Oars 


“You are welcome, Reb Joel!” said Hertz Wolf, 
who knew him at once, having seen him many 
times in his father’s house at Bels. 

And he invited him to sit down and lay aside 
his package. 

“I can’t put it down just anywhere,” replied 
the collector, throwing a glance of disgust at the 
table, where several dirty glasses were still stand- 
ing. 

“Is it something so precious then?” asked Hertz 
Wolf inquisitively. 

“It is the Thora from Reb Eljé.” 

At these words the whole household, as if by 
a stroke of magic, was thrown into agitation. 
The broom went racing about the floor; the can 
of petrol on the window-ledge found a hiding- 
place under the bed; caftans, shirts, boots, and 
furred bonnets bundled into the cupboard; the 
wreaths that decorate the huts at the Feast of 
Booths emerged from their drawers, and displayed 
themselves on the ceiling; green branches clothed 
the walls; the pots of geranium shivering by the 
door leaped on to the mantelpiece; the blinds 
shut out the glaring daylight; the flies left off 
buzzing, and on the table covered with a daz- 
Zlingly clean cloth Reb Joel placed his priceless 
burden as gently as one lays down a sleeping 
child in a cradle. 

With infinite care they took out the nails of 

[106] 


DR EMI GRR Te O ER EVENE RE: RN CAD 


the box. There lay the Thora wrapped in a white 
woollen taliss. Like a mother unwinding the 
swaddling bands of her infant the collector un- 
folded one lap of the sacred scarf, and the holy 
Book appeared in all the splendour of its new 
parchment. 

Soon the excited villagers came running to 
Amram’s house. Their beards and their ringlets 
bent eagerly over the table as they admired the 
beauty of the parchment, the length of the rolls 
and the magnificence of the caligraphy. What 
town of Hungary or of any other country could 
boast of possessing such a Thorar The accom- 
plished hand of Reb Eljé Lebowitz alone could 
be seen in the endless maze of glorious letters. 
‘According to custom the last letters at the end 
of the roll were traced in pencil only. The Rabbi 
put them up to auction. Every man among the 
Jews of the Community wished to buy one of 
those words, or at least one of the letters which 
are a breath from God, that he might ink them 
over, and thus share in the honour of writing 
the Thora. With cries and gesticulations as if 
at market they disputed who should buy this 
divine merchandise; and over the final word, 
precious among the most precious since it is the 
last breath from the mouth of Adonai on Mount 
Sinai, a pious duel was waged between Reb Jan- 
kele and Fine Stranger the egg-collector. These 

[107] 


L'H'E SFR AD OWFOLE eal AIEMCERICNSES 


two haughty personages went on bidding against 
one another higher and higher, amid the admira- 
tion of the company. And Fine Stranger was on 
the point of beating the other when his wife, who 
thought he was going mad, flung her satin wig 
at his head. 

When all the words had been allotted, those 
who had secured possession of them inked over 
the pencilled letters, following carefully the long 
loops and twirls. This took a considerable time. 
It required a whole hour to write the last verse of 
the Law: “The great and terrible works which 
Moses did in the sight of Israel.” The text was 
complete. The Thora was then arrayed in its 
robe. 

Wishing to do honour to his son, and his fam- 
ily and descendants, Reb Eljé had not been con- 
tent with lovingly copying the Thora; he had 
added to it a silken sheath embroidered with an 
escutcheon bearing the two Lions of Judah, and 
also two rich crowns from which hung silver bells. 
Hertz Wolf slipped the parchment into the sheath, 
and set the tinkling crowns upon the boxwood 
cylinders; the Thora being thus adorned, he then 
placed it standing upright on a shelf of the great 
open cupboard. 

The men then passed in line before the sacred 
roll. Covering their hands with the taliss, they 
touched the Thora with the tips of their fingers 

[1081 


RARE EG Ele O her bib Bob ER NAL 


and then kissed them. The women, who are ad- 
mitted only once a year to the synagogue, and 
behold the marvellous Book on that occasion 
alone, now gazed at it at leisure with rapture. 
Amram had broached a cask in his courtyard, and 
every one now went to drink there in honour of 
the Eternal. Until late in the evening there was 
drinking, singing and dancing as in ancient days 
before the sacred Ark. 
Inside the room the hymn of joy was sung: 


“Happy are the people who are in such a case; 
Happy are the people who have the Eternal for their 
God! 
Some put their trust in chariots, 
And others in their horses; 


But as for us we will call upon Thy name, 
O Eternal Sabaoth!” 


Gradually, however, the visitors returned to 
their houses. Hertz Wolf and Guitelé reverently 
shut the door of the cupboard, and went to bed 
in the chamber which had become the sanctuary 
of the Holy of Holies. The house was now all 
dark and silent. But for Guitelé the darkness was 
turned into light and the silence was changed into 
music. Ail night long through the close-shut 
doors of the cupboard she saw the Thora shining, 
and the little silver bells rang in her ears with a 
mysterious sound. 


[109] 


THE SHADOW OF THE!) CROSS 


For two days and two nights the Book remained 
in the home of the long-footed Jew, until Satur- 
day when, triumphantly accompanied by all the 
Thoras of the Community, it was brought to the 
synagogue under the marriage dais like a crowned 
bride. 

Since that day the caftans, the shirts, the boots, 
and the furred bonnets have taken their former 
places in Guitelé’s room; the garlands have gone 
back into their drawer; the branches have withered 
on the dust-heap. But in the house of the Jew- 
with-feet-that-reach-to-his-neck there is still an 
air of festivity over everything, as though the 
Thora were still in the cupboard, the garlands still 
upon the ceiling and the foliage still green. 

Hertz Wolf, bending over the Thora, finds out 
new interpretations, and, what is even better, he 
invents new problems! He is carried away by a 
holy enthusiasm; he cannot keep still, but gets up 
every minute, pacing the house with long strides, 
and then rushing off to the synagogue in the hope 
of finding some idler to whom he can tell his dis- 
coveries. 

Amram has obtained the administration of the 
Bishop’s estates, thus defeating two Christians 
who were applying for the stewardship, and in his 
joy at this success he has announced to Hertz 
Wolf that he will lengthen his term as son-in-law 
by five years. 

[110] 


DH C'F FLN O BP Wo Bees E RENAL 


But what matter the problems of Hertz Wolf 
and the business of Amram? What strange light 
is this that is shining in Guitelé’s eyes? She pours 
out drink for the Hungarian and the Tzigane, and 
suddenly she stops, taken with a kind of dizziness. 
A sound of bells is ringing in her ears as though an 
invisible flock of sheep or of Thoras were passing. 
Yesterday, as she went past the closed cupboard 
she saw it all lit up inside, as though instead of 
caftans, boots, and linen the holy Book were still 
there. What delicious languor weighs down her 
limbsr And at the same time what sense of light- 
ness, what joy to be alive, what courage in her 
work! 

The Shekinah, the Glory of God, radiates from 
her face. O holy Thora, thou hast heard then in 
that memorable night which thou didst pass in 
this chamber? It was not in vain that thou didst 
fill with thy presence in the darkness her heart and 
eyes and ears. 

This evening she will tell Hertz Wolf whence 
comes her mysterious gladness. 


Why is the Jew-with-feet-that-reach-to-his- 
neck coming out of his house at this late hour of 
the night? The village is wrapped in darkness 
and mist; Jews and peasants are at rest beneath 
their feather quilts; the carnations and geraniums 
are asleep between the double panes; some one 


[1111 


TRESS HAD OW Or OTE Rh OS 


blows out a candle in the Magnate’s bedroom. 

But he, in his ugly levite, with head and beard 
thrust forward and shoulders bowed, is striding 
along in haste towards the synagogue. Yet no 
Jew goes to that holy place, if he can help it, while 
night broods over the earth. For at this hour the 
dead meet together, and often belated passers-by 
have heard them muttering the Talmud and the 
Psalms. But what of that? For the sake of 
those who are to be born must we not overcome 
our terror of those who are dead? 

Guitelé is in the pains of childbirth, and Hertz 
Wolf, shuddering with fear, is running to the syn- 
agogue to hasten her deliverance by untying the 
cords of the Law. 

In the entrance he stopped. Surely there was a 
murmur of voices. He listened with all his ears, 
and then as the sound seemed to cease, his long 
feet moved cautiously forward. In the stand 
hanging from the ceiling two or three candles were 
burning themselves out. At the far end of the 
hall he could see the two Lions of Judah gleaming 
on the crimson curtain over the cupboard of the 
Thoras. He climbed on to a stool, and with a 
shaking hand drew aside the curtain grating on 
its rusty rod, and revealed the great rolls of parch- 
ment standing upright in their sheaths of silk and 
crowned with their silver bells. Hertz Wolf 
stretched out a timorous arm, and took down the 


[112] 


APTE G LI EST OPEN Ray Bet BRN ACL 


Book which his father had copied. The little 
bells tinkled faintly, and it seemed to him that 
the sound rang through the synagogue like thun- 
der. Trembling like a leaf, he kissed the sacred 
parchment, untied the cord which held the rolls 
together, and said very low that he might not 
frighten himself: 

“Master of the world, deliver my wife as I 
deliver Thy Law.” 

Having said this, he replaced the Thora among 
its holy companions. Then he went out, striding 
quickly towards his own house through the vil- 
lage, in which was no sound save here and there 
the squeak of a violin. 

“Oh that the child may not be a girl!” he 
thought. 

Well, there must be girls, of course! There 
must be some to light the Sabbath candles, to 
cook the ritual dishes and the innumerable kinds 
of cakes appointed for each festival, and to make 
the great Kippour candles. But it is with chil- 
dren as it is with the various trades: all are 
equally necessary, and the tanner’s, for instance, 
is just as useful as the perfumer’s, but who would 
prefer the stink of tanned hides to the sweetness 
of scents? Can a girl say the supreme Kaddisch, 
the prayer of redemption, over the grave of her fa- 
there Can a girl fulfil the everlasting hope of Is- 
rael who looks in each new-born son for the Mes- 


[1131 


THEUSWAD OW. 70 Fel BLE eR Oss 


siah—the Messiah who wanders on the earth in 
the guise of a poor and unknown Jew, still dying 
and being born again, sometimes in the house of 
Jacob and sometimes in that of Levi, and who will 
reveal himself in his glory on the day when Israel 
has suffered and has prayed enough? 

“Blessed be Thou, O Master of the world!” 
He arrived at his house to find that a child had 
been born. And that child was a boy. And he 
was born on a Wednesday, a day propitious above 
all others for bringing a son into the world; for it 
was on Wednesday that the heavenly luminous 
bodies were created, and it has been proved hun- 
dreds of times that he who is born on this day is 
gifted with understanding and great power of 
memory. 

Hertz Wolf lifted up his voice in the beautiful 
canticle of Israel: 


“Behold the gift of the Eternal! 

The reward which He gives is the fruit of the womb. 
Like the arrows in the hand of the warrior, 

Even so are the fruits of youth! 

Happy is the man who hath his quiver full of them.” 


But the matrons who guarded the young mother 
roughly bade him to be silent, and sent him to 
sing his canticle outside in the street. 

Wearing their holy wigs, which every time 

[114] 


ACTE AG ES OFF? tities: EURE ReNC AG, 


they stooped showed their old shaven crowns, they 
were mounting guard round Guitelé, to drive away 
the bad angels who hover round in invisible hosts 
ready to snatch away the new-born babe before 
he is admitted by circumcision into the community 
of Abraham. All that week, at the hour of night- 
fall when the nocturnal deities have power over 
the darkened world, the little boys of the village 
invaded the bed-chamber to dance and to sing 
round the infant’s cradle. ‘Dance, let us dance, 
little Jews!” they seemed to say. “Rare in our 
lives is dancing and gladness! Let not Gamaliel, 
Diana, nor the fairy Lilith break through our 
youthful chain! May Adam and Eve remain 
here, and as many good angels watching over 
the cradle as there are nails in the roof. May 
all the legions of the angels go with us circling 
round. May life go always dancing round about 
our little brother. Let no harm have power to 
reach him. Let the chain of our circle still go 
round his life.” 

And while the singing children circled round 
her, Guitelé lay in a kind of torpor, repeating 
rapturously to herself the beautiful name which 
she had given to her son. She had chosen neither 
Benjamin nor Solomon nor David; she had chosen 
Reuben, that cry of triumph signifying “Behold, 
I have a son!” 

The matrons had watched eight nights. The 

[115] 


T'AENS'H A D OMWMO'FAMHIEMNCR OSS 


chain of children had encircled her eight days. 
There were but a few more dreadful hours, and on 
the morrow the knife of circumcision would scat- 
ter the shades and drive away the phantoms. In 
that final night when the defeated angels would 
venture their last attacks the Sacrificer brought 
for the defence of mother and child the knife of 
sacrifice, the antique knife of the Covenant, such 
as that which the angel of the Lord held back 
from the head of Isaac. He slipped it into the 
bed under the mattress where the mother lay. 
What demon would be so bold as to touch a child 
protected by the knife of Abrahamp 

All night until the morning its presence daunted 
the infernal spirits: and the dawn of the glorious 
day completed the discomfiture of the genii of the 
night. Reuben, safe and sound, was carried to 
the synagogue with his head well wrapped up in 
a silken bonnet, for a head uncovered is an offence 
to the Lord. Yet once more the knife of the Ho- 
het (Sacrificer) performed its sacred office. The 
toothless mouth of an old man, acting as godfa- 
ther to the child, touched the fresh wound to suck 
the young blood. O Israel, how pure and strong 
thy blood must be, if after so many ages in which 
thy new-born sons are thus welcomed by the 
mouths of toothless age, there is yet one vigorous 
healthy Jew upon the earth! 


[116] 


CHA BPBTER Vi 
Petr DIE LIRE AM Wit Ax END Gore 


“The world is upheld by the pure breath of children 
studying the Thora” (Talmud of Jerusalem). 


A child of the Ghetto seldom knows anything 
of the flowers and fruits of the fields. How 
should he, indeed, when he lives in some sordid 
urban district, redolent of poverty and rancid 
goose-grease? But upon these country Jews 
Nature, surely, might make some impression? 
Surely, there, some village poet might be born. 
For the Jewish child, as well as for the little Hun- 
garian and gipsy, the wind whispers in the 
branches: for him, too, the brawling torrent comes 
rushing down the slopes, and the mountain wraps 
itself in clouds at night-time, and shines out splen- 
did in the sunrise. Not for the Christian alone 
are the mists that rise in the steep meadows, or 
the sweet scent of the acacia, or the pinks and 
geraniums that flower in the windows. 

The little Jew-boy has only to open his eyes, 
he has only to come out upon his doorstep to gaze 
upon the lower mountain slopes where the forest 


[117] 


THE MPS AH AID O0 WI O NOT EE WC RO Sis 


ends, and upon the sunlit plain that stretches far 
away into the distance. But his eyes are shut, 
his ears are deaf. Not in vain was it written in 
the Talmud: ‘He who turns from the study of 
the Law, and says ‘How lovely is that tree! how 
straight is that furrow!’ that man is worthy of 
death.” 

Out of doors there were neither mountains nor 
tumbling streams nor carnations nor geraniums 
for Reuben. There was the dog that barked, the 
pig that rushed at you like a wild beast, the hens 
and the geese that ran after you with their long 
outstretched necks, and, more dangerous even 
than the beasts themselves, there were the chil- 
dren, the wicked Christian children! But oh, 
what harm had he done to themr Why did they 
chase him away each time that he ventured into 
the street? Oh, how they shouted in his ears 
that terrible song of the bacon! How they pulled 
his long locks of hair which his mother oiled with 
plum-juice every morning! Holy ritual curls that 
grow longer and longer as children grow more 
pious and good! Holy ritual curls, the livery of 
the Lord; how should the Master of the world rec- 
ognize His Jews if there were no hair to be seen 
beneath our hats? 

But what did the Christian children know of 
these mysteries? They laughed at them. And 

[118] 


AP OH TE DYE CKE VAR WAX EN) DOU EL 


what do you think they called them, those loved, 
sacred ringlets? The lice-walks! 

Outside the house was nothing but fear and 
horror and a world of devils. The best way by 
far was to stay indoors and keep near the stove. 
There were no dogs there, no geese, no pigs, no 
children, and there would have been nothing at 
all to fear if the house were not full of invisible 
spirits. One’s knees knocked against them all 
the time when one was walking, and that was 
why one felt so tired at the end of the day. 
Clothes wore out quickly because of those evil 
spirits rubbing against them night and day; nails 
got black because they hid themselves in the small- 
est folds of the body, especially the finger-ends. 
And what would have become of him if every 
Saturday his mother had not cut his nails care- 
fully and burned the little pieces? 

Never mind! There was always one good 
peaceful day; that was our beautiful Saturday. 
On Friday evening ordinary life which had been 
going on ali day suddenly stopped. The room 
smelt deliciously of goose-grease; the ritual fish 
lay spluttering in its pan on the stove, and the 
cakes were keeping hot under the feather quilt. 
The table was bright with the silver candlestick, 
the two Sabbath loaves, the vessel filled with 
spices and dried roses. His mother lighted the 


[119] 


THE SH A D OW 10: POTENIE NOR 0 Sis 


candles and, to glorify the Lord by turning her 
eyes to something bright which she was not accus- 
tomed to seeing, she looked at the light trans- 
parent through her fingers. Reuben too lifted his 
hand between his eyes and the flame to gaze at the 
beautiful rosy light. Of all things that the Lord 
had created was there any more worthy to be 
praised than the light of candles? 

The splendour of the Shekinah, the Glory of 
God, shone through all the house: it seemed as if 
the harp of David were floating in the air. 
Dressed in their silk caftans, and wearing on their 
heads not the round hats of ordinary weekdays, 
but the velvet bonnets encircled with thirteen 
bands of fur, Hertz Wolf and Reb Amram came 
in from the synagogue, bringing with them from 
her land of pearl and emerald where she dwells 
beyond the forest the Princess of the Sabbath. 

“A good Saturday!” they would say as they 
entered. 

And the feast began. Amram lifted a glass 
filled with wine in his right hand, pronounced 
the Kiddousch which sanctified the feast, put the 
glass to his lips, drank a little more than half of it, 
then passed it round; and every one in turn drank 
to the drunkenness of Israel, the immense joy of 
living and breathing still after the trials of so 
many centuries. And they sang the old song, ac- 
companying themselves by clapping their hands: 

[120] 


PCA EE DATE PRE OA UNE AR EN (DIO EE 
“How admirable is thy peace, 

Beautiful Princess of the Sabbath! 

We go forth to meet thee, 

We invite thee: come, oh crowned bride! 

All care is ended, all toil cast away, 

And we rejoice around thy table 

Where the candles shine, 

And eat of pullet, meat and fish.” 


The invisible Princess rested, stretched out 
softly on the feather quilt. Her body was so light 
that the eiderdown took no print of her form, her 
countenance was so bright that it could not be dis- 
tinguished from the shining of the candles. Out 
of doors, the moon, the friend of the Jews, per- 
formed her sacred office, journeying through heav- 
en to mark the sequence of the years and the 
days and the dates of festivals, and to guide the 
Jews on their road to Jerusalem, and the poor 
wanderers. 

For Reuben the whole of the next day would 
pass in marvellous repose. The dogs, the geese, 
the pigs, and the little Christian boys—God only 
knew what they were doing! he was at peace. 
His mother would not touch a needle, nor light 
a candle, nor throw one piece of wood upon the 
fire, nor sell one glass of wine, nor even kill one 
louse, for to kill a louse on the Seventh day, as 
Reb Akiba had said, was as much as killing a 
camel. 


[121] 


DME SHADOW XOFY LHENCR OSS 


A poor old Christian woman came in to attend 
to the stove and to light the candles. The child 
thought that old Christian women existed for the 
purpose of looking after fires for Jews on the 
Sabbath day. 

Those were blessed hours in which, sitting be- 
tween his mother and the Princess, he learned 
those things which the soul grasps with such ar- 
dent strength that in after years it seems to us 
that we brought the knowledge of them with us 
into the world: he learned that mysterious num- 
bers rule the destinies of men; that the number 
three brings happiness and the number nine mis- 
fortune, as 1s proved by all Jewish catastrophes, 
which happen invariably on the ninth of the 
month; that the figure seven is neutral, sometimes 
good and sometimes bad, and that the lot of mor- 
tals changes every seventh year; that the Chris- 
tians are abandoned to heathen worship and adore 
three gods at once, a dove, a man, and a lamb, 
and that one ought to turn away one’s face when 
one passes a church; that all the misfortunes of 
the Hebrews come from that man hanging on 
the great wooden crosses that one sees at every 
turn of the roads; that the Lord punishes the 
Jew who dares to lift his eyes towards them, 
and for forty days afterwards does not listen to 
his prayers. 

Softly the night came down, the sad and splen- 

[122] 


ÀA'ROHME DIET KiB tA Wi XEN) DO LL 


did hour when the Princess must depart from the 
house. 

Holding a glass of wine in his right hand, and 
in his left the little silver flask perforated with 
holes and filled with spices, Amram bade fare- 
well to the invisible Princess. The flask was 
passed round, and every one breathed in the odour 
of dried roses as he would breathe the odour of 
the Sabbath. Reuben, standing beside the old 
man, lifted as high as he could reach a long 
burning waxlight, for his mother had often told 
him that he would grow to be as tall as the height 
at which he held it. His grandfather then took 
it from him, and moved it first to the right and 
then to the left side of his face, to divide the sacred 
from the profane, and the holy day now ending 
from the common days which were beginning; then 
he drank the wine, and having spilt a few drops 
into the plate in front of him, dipped in the lighted 
taper. So, in the sizzling of the wax, in a spiral 
of smoke, with the departing light, the crowned 
bride vanished from Reuben’s sight as myste- 
riously as she had come. 


Yet sometimes, one couldn’t tell why, there 
would even come a weekday when nothing went 
wrong. One might venture out upon the road, 
and the dogs lying round the doors would not 
bark at you, the geese were not fierce, and the 


[123] 


Tie 0 S HA D OFWs Olas: AE SCAR ae 


little Christians themselves forgot to persecute 
you or to pull your hair. 

One of these golden days had dawned for 
Reuben. He had gone off on a marauding expe- 
dition with a party of Christian children, and 
now they had stopped beside an orchard wall over 
which raspberry bushes were climbing. There is 
nothing sweeter, nothing nicer than a raspberry 
warm with the sun. Micha, the baker’s son, 
pulled down a bending spray towards him. The 
other boys did the same, even Denis the cripple. 
Reuben looked on enviously, but did not dare to 
touch the red fruits. 

“Why aren’t you eating?” asked the bold Micha. 

Ah, yes; why? How should that little Chris- 
tian know that for every act in our lives there is 
an appointed benediction: the benediction to be 
said on getting up and lying down, at the begin- 
ning of a meal and the end of it, on taking rest 
and on starting our work; one to be said when 
we see the lightning, one when we hear the thun- 
der; one when we stand before a tree or a flow- 
ering bush; another when we breathe the scent 
of an aromatic plant or the perfume of spices; 
one to be said when we see the rainbow or look 
upon some very beautiful thing; another when 
we put on a new garment or throw away an old 
caftan; one to be said on seeing an eminent rabbi, 
a distinguished scholar, or a king or a giant or 

[124] 


A CHILD: LIKE A WAXEN DOLL 


a dwarf (praise be to Thee, Eternal, for the di- 
versity of Thy creatures!), and among a thou- 
sand more there is one to be said before eating 
the fruit of a tree and another for the products 
of the ground. 

Now, raspberries; are they the fruit of a tree 
or the product of the ground? Which of the two 
benedictions should be said before they touch 
one’s lips? Reuben did not know. And having 
already learned subtilty, he asked with a careless 
air: 

“Ts the raspberry bush a tree or a plant of 
the ground?” 

“The raspberry is a tree,’ answered the baker’s 
son, for whom the world had no mysteries. 

“Blessed be Thou, Eternal, our God, King of 
the universe, Who hast created the fruits of the 
tree!” the pious child murmured in his heart. 

And having said the benediction, he joined his 
comrades, and plundered his neighbour’s rasp- 
berry bushes without remorse. 


These were rare interludes of concord and for- 
getfulness. Those little Christians were so fe- 
rocious! So long as the great iron Crosses stretch 
their menacing arms beneath the lime trees in the 
square and at all the crossings of the roads, there 
can be no peace nor truce between the children 
of Christ and the children of Israel. 

[125] 


LDH'E NS HAD)OIWM OI Fe BAG Rear 


It was especially at the festival they called 
Christmas that they grew so terribly overbearing! 
To hear them singing the dreadful song of the 
bacon! And their behaviour became perfectly 
outrageous. They got up at midnight and went 
into their church, and took to singing crazy hymns. 
Till daybreak they worshipped a doll, an ass, an 
ox, and a star. Next day it was almost beyond 
belief how wicked they had become; it seemed 
as if the ass and the ox had bestowed all their 
bad qualities upon them. 

On that day certainly it would be wiser to 
stay indoors beside the stove. But those Chris- 
tians enjoyed themselves in ways which, even to 
a little Jew, were deeply interesting. The mag- 
nate’s steward and his wife had a great fir tree 
in their house; there were hundreds of lighted 
candles among its branches: a thousand splendid 
things wrapped in gilt paper were hanging on the 
boughs; the effect was astounding! 

How could one resist the wish to have a nearer 
view of such marvels? Reuben, with his feet 
deep in the snow and his nose pressed against the 
window-pane, watched the children, boys and 
girls together, hand in hand, dancing round the 
beautiful shining tree. The village priest chatted 
with the women and caressed the children; his 
caftan was almost exactly like the rabbi’s, but 


[126] 


A CeTCD LIKE AM WAXEN DOLL 


had one ever seen the rabbi talking to women? 
had he ever been seen to smile? 

And all of them, boys and girls, had their heads 
uncovered! No one, not even the priest, had kept 
on his hat; as if a pious man must not always 
have his head covered at least with a silk skull- 
Cap. 

The little Jew stared at all this with admira- 
tion and disgust. Evening fell, and a thick mist 
gradually filled the square; the houses seemed to 
grow lower and the church bigger. Through the 
open porch he could see the glitter of innumer- 
able candles down the nave. He would have 
turned homewards, but curiosity drew him for- 
ward. He went on, up to the threshold of the 
church, and there, amid a forest of candles, he 
saw a wilderness of rocks and branches, inhabited 
by a crowd of funny little sheep, and shepherds, 
and people riding on camels, and the doll that 
they worshipped. 

Ah, if his father had seen him there, what a 
stroke of the leather strap he would have had 
when he came home! And then, suddenly, the 
cradle, the fir tree, the children and the priest 
all disappeared. He was seized, lifted from the 
ground, and carried off swiftly by cruel hands, 
unhappy wretch that he was! through the fog. 
By his shock of red hair and his hangman’s face, 

[127] 


THES HA DO WSO Mie BC Riis ts 


he had instantly recognized Micha, the baker’s 
son, who was holding him by the legs. But the 
other, whom he had never seen before, and who 
had seized him by the head? That must be the 
angel Gamaliel. He did indeed look frightful! 
What did they want with him? Where were they 
taking him? Terror clutched him by the throat 
so that he could not cry out. And now he might 
scream if he would, and no one would hear; he 
was outside the village, right away from the 
houses in some lonely place. 

The baker’s son threw him down on the snow, 
and pressed his knee upon him. The angel Ga- 
maliel drew a knife from his pocket. Half dead 
with horror, he saw in a flash his mother sitting 
by the stove, his father bending over the sacred 
books. He called to them, but in vain. All 
round him there was nothing but the snow, the 
white fields, and over there in the square the 
Christmas tree glowing red through the fog. Then 
everything vanished. It was all over with him. 
He felt the ice-cold blade of the knife against his 
cheek! 

When he recovered from his mad terror and 
opened his eyes, the baker’s son and the angel 
Gamaliel were taking to their heels, but his two 
long ringlets lay beside him in the snow like dead 
birds. An immense, an infinite despair over- 


[128] 


APACHE DDR KE Aw Wa RTERN DO" LT 


whelmed him. The road to heaven had been cut 
off from him! 

How could he go back homer What was he 
to say to his father and mother? And why had 
he lingered to look at the cursed tree, and that 
cradle with its star, its doll, and the ox and the 
ass ? 

He picked up the loved ringlets, and with hang- 
ing head and a bursting heart he took his way 
to the house. Avoiding the church, he cut across 
through the fields. But in escaping from the 
church he came up against the crucifix at the 
cross-roads. He turned away his head that he 
might not see the great iron figure of Christ. But 
there it was, the terrifying dead body, hanging 
there amid the drifting snow-clouds. Its huge 
arms stretched out over the road ready to fling 
themselves upon him. He ran; the cross pursued 
him! He ran till he was out of breath, stumbling 
in the snow; but at each step the cross gained 
upon him. He felt an icy breath in his neck and 
a dreadful hand coming on behind him. A few 
more paces still, and there was the door! He 
gave a cry and threw himself into Guitelé’s arms. 
Master of the world, it was time! The terrible 
ice-cold hand had already seized his tzitziss. 

But Hertz Wolf did not unbuckle the formidable 
leathern band which divides the noble and su- 


[129] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


perior parts of the body from the inferior, to 
administer the dreaded chastisement to his son. 
There was not one word of reproach nor one 
gesture of anger; only silence and the heavy grief 
that comes with inevitable misfortune, and the 
sadness of eyes uplifted saying to the Lord, 
“Eternal, Rock of Ages, behold the first step of 
my child Reuben on the hard road of adversity. 
A thousand and a thousand others he will make, 
but the first is the most grievous. Receive it as 
firstfruits from the hands of thy poor servant.” 
Then turning to Reuben, who was more ago- 
nized by his silence than he would have been by 
his anger, he took from the child’s hands the locks 
still warm with life, and opening the Testament 
used only on days of festival, he placed them be- 
tween the leaves of the Book of Judges, like 
flowers of remembrance and of lasting enmity. 


What Christian can understand the deep signifi- 
cance that there is for a Jew in the process of 
learning to read? Reading, to a Christian, is the 
same kind of thing as eating, drinking and sleep- 
ing; he uses his tongue, as animals do, merely for 
material ends, for gaining his livelihood, for 
brawling with his neighbours in the tavern, or 
for insulting the Jew. 

But for a child of Israel, learning to read means 
casting away like a worn-out garment the old 


[130] 


Aceh D EL REP AY WAL FIND O L:E 


every-day language, the dear familiar Yiddish, 
made up of all the dialects of the world and words 
borrowed from every nation among whom the 
Israelites have journeyed during their tribulations; 
it means learning to speak as King David and 
King Solomon spoke in the ancient days of glory; 
it means learning the sacred language in which 
the Master of the world gave the Law to Moses, 
a language of which each syllable was actually 
formed by the breath of God, a language of which 
the lightest sound has power to shake the founda- 
tions of the earth. Learning to read is to pray. 

So the first day that Hertz Wolf-with-feet-that- 
reach-to-his-neck took Reuben to school he 
wound the taliss very carefully round him, that 
on that blessed day when his son should spell out 
the first letters of the Hebrew alphabet he might 
be, so to speak, entirely enveloped in prayers. 
Besides, these Hungarian peasants always allow 
their swine to wander about at will in the village 
streets, and one may as well do one’s best to avoid 
the painful sight of a pig on first setting out to 
read the holy Thora. 

The house in which this wonderful language 
was taught was quite the poorest and the most 
sordid in the village, and looked indeed more like 
a stable than a house. It was a low building, 
with a roof of thatch nibbled at by the sheep; 
there were stagnant puddles in the floor, and the 

[131] 


DHEVS HA D'OWÉOEMHEACRORS 


cobwebs trembling and swaying in the draught 
were the only ceiling beneath the thatch. On the 
east wall hung a card with the Hebrew inscription: 
“From this side blows a life-giving air.” Over 
the door on the west side there was a black gap- 
ing hole intended to recall the destruction of the 
Temple, and through this hole came an icy wind 
and a strong smell of goat. 

It is not very pleasant to have a billy-goat in 
one’s stable, and the Jews of the village had dele- 
gated to the schoolmaster the duties of educating 
their children and of keeping the he-goat necessary 
for the flocks of the community. But although 
it is written that those who are studying the Law 
exhale a perfume more exquisite than incense and 
myrrh, the combined breaths of the Melamed and 
his scholars were not sufficient to overpower the 
forcible odour of the animal. 

In this retreat of Hebrew learning there were 
about fifteen children stammering in the sacred 
tongue. Solomon’s Temple would not have ap- 
peared more beautiful to Reuben. From the 
main beam there hung at the end of a long string 
a cake soaked in honey, which signified the first 
letter of the divine alphabet. Never in any lan- 
guage has there been so splendid a letter! To 
the child’s dazzled eyes the yolk of egg that it 
was smeared with shone like gold through the 
murky stable. His mother had been right when 

[132] 


A CHILD LIKE A WAXEN DOLL 


she told him: “There is nothing in the world 
more beautiful than learning to read the Thora!” 

When the sparkling letter had been swinging 
long enough above his nose and when he knew 
that it was called “Alef,’ the old schoolmaster 
untied it from the string, and put it into his hand. 
It was made of the dough from which the Satur- 
day bread is kneaded, and its taste was de- 
licious. A second letter followed: he ate it like 
the first, and that day he left the school convinced 
that there was nothing so nice as the letters of the 
Hebrew alphabet. 

But it was only the letter Alef which was made 
of Saturday bread. The others were not golden: 
they did not shine at the end of a string, coated 
with beautiful yolk of egg; there was more often 
the taste of tears in them than of honey or of 
the Sabbath dough. And the knowledge of di- 
vine things is not acquired in a day! Every 
morning he had to get up before dawn, and go to 
the Heder through the mud and snow while the 
little Christians of the village were still fast asleep. 
The forge was not yet alight, only a feeble glim- 
mer of morning appeared far away behind the 
fir trees of the Carpathians. The waterfall had 
a threatening sound. What had it been doing 
all night long? Reuben could not guess. 

But however soon he arrived, the old school- 
master was already there at his table, reciting his 


[133] 


LH) ENS AD OW sO PSE AGIT OSS 


prayers. Evidently he never went to bed! He 
was old, extremely old, as a true Melamed ought 
to be: for he who learns from a young master 
is like to a foolish man who eats green grapes 
and drinks wine as it pours from the wine-press, 
but he who has a master of ripe age is like to 
a man who eats fine grapes and drinks old wine. 
The two locks that hung beside his hollow cheeks 
were only two thin corkscrew ringlets, but their 
length testified to his piety and learning. The 
scanty hairs of his beard that he was always 
pulling and dragging hung in long threads over 
his worn caftan; and when one came out in his 
hand, rather than throw on the ground that hair 
from his chin which had sung the glory of the 
Eternal, he laid it piously, as it is commanded, 
between the pages of his precious Talmud, which 
in the course of fifty years had become a hair 
cemetery, a hideous herbal. 

Under his reddened, sleepless eye and his ever 
vigilant rod, the little scholars sat rocking them- 
selves to and fro, and chanting in a din of dis- 
cordant voices the words of the unknown tongue. 
It mattered little whether or not they understood 
the ancient mysterious speech. It was enough to 
recognize the signs, to know the verses by heart, 
to read them, to drone them out in the unchang- 
ing traditional sing-song. And so from dawn to 
dusk the phrases of the incomparable Scripture 

[134] 


ARCHVLODLELKETAEWAXENDOLL 


were recited unceasingly by infant lips. Day 
after day was passed in tireless rocking to and 
fro and noisy chanting, under the menace of the 
rod, ever ready to wake the sleepy, to stir up 
the lazy, and maintain in every corner of the 
room this precept—"Be diligent in thy sacred oc- 
cupation, for if thou shouldest add or take away 
one letter, thou wouldst cause the ruin of the 
world.” 

Fortunately the Melamed was very fond of 
snuff. Solomon, Moses or Jacob having two 
kreutzers in their pockets, would break off sud- 
denly in the sacred reading. “Reb Nathaniel,” 
they would call out impudently, “tell us a story, 
and we will give you two kreutzers.” Then the 
hesitating voices of the smallest boys and the 
chant of the others who were reciting the Talmud 
and the Thora ceased, as when a stream runs dry, 
or the wind dies down in the forest and the fir 
trees all grow silent. The pitiless rod seemed 
paralysed; heavenly magic descended from the 
cobweb roof; the whole room was perfumed with 
snuff. 

And Reb Nathaniel, in a nasal voice whose 
ironic intonation the children were too young to 
perceive, would relate some beautiful tale that 
has enchanted the imagination of Israel for cen- 
turies, especially that called: “When the Mes- 
siah comes,’ which sounds like the dream of a 


[135] 


BeBe SSH IAD OW SON MT eB Ge Rees 


man whose stomach is empty and his mind filled 
with hope. 

When the Messiah comes it will be on a beau- 
tiful Saturday morning. On the highest peak of 
the Carpathian mountains the prophet Elias will 
blow the trumpet, and then the miracle will come 
to pass! The Messiah, who ever since the fall 
of Jerusalem has been wandering over the earth 
in the disguise of a poor unknown Jew, will sud- 
denly reveal Himself, wearing a breastplate of 
silver and a rich velvet mantle. And there will 
be the end of all suffering for the Jews. A great 
shower of wine will fall like rain upon the earth, 
the rays of the sun will be as thick as spears, and 
at the end of every ray will be hanging something 
very good to eat; the earth will cast up Leviathan, 
the marvellous fish which supports the world and 
will be the food of all mankind. The angels 
will bring great golden cups to the feast, and the 
wine of the first vintage which the Master of 
the world has been keeping in the celestial cellars 
will be poured out into the cups. All good Jews 
will sing, all the children will leap and dance. 
Ah, when will that day come? 


These many mornings in the snow and mud, 
these many chantings and many strokes of the 
rod, have at last borne fruit. Those trudgings 
through the dismal dawn while the pale light 

[136] 


Abpea Decl Ree Ae W A TX NEN2ED'O LL 


glimmered in the fir trees, those tedious days on 
the benches of the Heder, are now all forgotten. 

In the house of the long-footed Jew radiant 
faces of friends and visitors are seen round the 
well-spread table. The beadle of the synagogue 
has come without waiting to be invited. The 
Melamed has put on his least threadbare caftan 
and his high furred bonnet full of moths. The 
candles light up the tablecloth as on the most 
splendid Saturdays. But what matter the Sab- 
bath candles to-day? He, Reuben, is a brilliant 
star! He himself is the candle that shines most 
brightly. He is the purest and the whitest wax. 
To-day he is to recite in public for the first time 
a passage of the holy books of Moses! 

His father lifts him in both hands, and makes 
him stand on the table with the candles all 
around him. The Melamed pulls out a hair from 
his beard and takes a pinch of snuff. Now you 
shall see what he can make of his pupils! 

But patience! one moment! This child of 
God, this gift of the Thora, must be made to 
shine more brightly yet in the eyes of the Lord. 
For is he not to-day His Ark and the Sanctuary 
of His Law? Let him be covered with all that 
is most precious. Let him be adorned and spar- 
kling like the curtain of the Tabernacle. Let him 
ring with silvery sound like the Thora with her 
jingling bells. Is he not the very living Thora? 

[137] 


TELE SH AD OW #10 PMR Ee CROSS 


Every one takes from his pocket his silver watch 
and chain, and hangs it upon the child, that he 
may be splendid as the sheaths of the richest 
Thoras, and all his movements be accompanied 
by the music of bells. He shines, he flashes like 
the window of a Viennese jeweller’s shop. 

“Now then!” says the Melamed, and sniffs at 
his broad snuff-blackened thumb. 

It is a charming scene, always, when a beautiful 
child, his heart swelling with emotion, comes for- 
ward into a listening circle to sing his song or 
recite his fable. But in this tavern-parlour in 
this lonely spot among the Carpathians, that little 
Jew standing among the candles, saying divine 
verses in his tremulous voice; these attentive 
Hebrews drawn by the ancient sound of the chant 
to accompany him in an undertone, with their 
ritual curls hanging against their cheeks; this 
is a picture of antique Judah hearkening to the 
voice of God. With head bent sideways and ears 
alert, the Melamed leans over the table to make 
sure that his pupil shall not miss out one word 
of the incomparable Scripture. Adonai (blessed 
may He be!) is listening also from the height of 
heaven. He has no need to bend down to hear. 

The recitation being ended, applause broke 
forth. Joy and pride filled the little palpitating 
heart: it was that purely Jewish joy and delight, 
honour and praise for that which from childhood 

[138] 


AMO DEOL ERENAMW AXE; ND OL L 


upwards these people, attached as they are to mis- 
erable earthly goods, yet esteem as a priceless 
treasure; the treasure of knowledge and under- 
standing. 

“May God make thee grow like Ephraim and 
Manasseh,” said each guest, taking back his 
watch. 

And the matrons who had saved him from the 
terrible Lilith embraced his mother, who had 
turned pale with pleasure, and declared—in the 
usual complimentary phrase—"The child is like a 
waxen doll.” 

The faded carnations flower again, the shorn- 
off ringlets grow once more. But the disap- 
pointed dreams of a child?—What bulky Talmud 
has pages numerous enough to contain between 
them all those heavenly curls which fall from a 
young forehead as the winds of life blow over it? 

For a long time he believed, when on a Friday 
evening the rumbling carriage rattled into the 
yard, for a very long time he had thought that his 
grandfather was bringing under the tarpaulin of 
his cart the beautiful Princess of the Sabbath 
from the land of pearl and emerald where she 
dwelt beyond the forest. And on the following 
evening, when he saw Amram harnessing his horse 
as soon as the sputtering candle had been extin- 
guished in the spirits, he had been quite persuaded 
that the old man was setting out to escort the 

[139] 


TSIDE® StH ASD O0 IWEMO PF SISNERGEIRION SES 


Princess to her enchanted palace. Alas! he knows 
now that the carriage is loaded, according to the 
month or the season, only with scrap-iron, old 
clothes, newly flayed sheepskins, or poultry or 
feathers. How could the crowned Bride be there? 

And how many other tresses, life—more cruel 
than the most wicked Christian child—shears day 
by day from his temples! 

Every evening on returning from school he used 
to find his father in his room, bending over the 
little table and reading the sacred texts. And 
this constant study had inspired him with an ad- 
miration mingled with fear of Hertz Wolf which 
he did not feel for his mother nor for his grand- 
father, who filled the house with his loud voice, 
and chatted familiarly with the village folk, Hun- 
garians, Slovaques, Tziganes, Christians or Jews, 
not even disdaining to tipple with them. Amram 
used to go and come and start off again, never 
sitting still, and not much frequenting the syna- 
gogue: he would disappear for a week, and return 
suddenly on a Friday afternoon at the hour when 
the Schames cries: “Schoul herein! To the syn- 
agogue!” just in time to change his caftan cov- 
ered with mud and snow if it were winter-time, or 
thick with dust in summer, and put on his Satur- 
day garment. 

But his father! His father, who did nothing, 
who only used his feet for walking from the house 

[140] 


ARCS TE Di VY KEV AW, Awe NE D OL E 


to the synagogue and from the synagogue to the 
house! His hands were occupied only in prayer, 
his tongue was loosened only to chant the Law, 
his eyes were employed only in reading the holy 
Scriptures. His father hardly ever talked, his 
mind being sunk in the depths of unfathomable 
thoughts; he rarely spoke a word to a Hungarian 
and never to a Tzigane; he wore out his eyes 
night and day over the obscure Zohar, and seemed 
to carry about with him in his beard or the folds 
of his caftan something of the miracles and the 
piety of the holy town where he was born. His 
father, in short, was the son of the grand Sofer 
of Bels, and merely by sitting over his books he 
was hastening, upon the mysterious paths of 
heaven and earth, the coming of the Messiah. 

And then, one Saturday evening, after the adieu 
to the Princess, Amram, in a hurry as usual, had 
harnessed the horse. Hertz Wolf had got up be- 
side him on the seat of the carriage, and they 
both vanished in the darkness. 

After that day Reuben, when he returned from 
the Heder, no longer used to find his father in 
the little dark room behind the tavern, reading 
at the window. Neither did he find him in the 
dear synagogue. But on a Friday evening he 
would see him coming in, covered with mud like 
the grandfather himself. What was the meaning 
of such a change, such a revulsion in the order 


[141] 


THES H ADO WMD PNA IENCRrROSS 


of things? He wanted to ask his mother, but 
timidity restrained him: it was as though he 
dreaded to touch on some very terrible problem. 

Alas, the Jew-with-feet-to-his-neck was a son- 
in-law no longer! Seven years had passed since 
the day when the bishop had entrusted to Trebitz 
the administration of his affairs, and the extended 
term which Amram had granted to Hertz Wolf 
for continuing his studies had expired. 

Uncomprehending, Reuben gazed at his empty 
place, and with a heart divided between shame 
and grief he dimly felt that misfortune had fallen 
upon the household. 


[142] 


CHAPTER VII 
RENAE TIS EA RY RANT J RAG SAUL ENG ie 


The time of the singing of birds is come, 

And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. 

The fig tree putteth forth her tender buds, 

And the vines with the young grapes give a good smell. 
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. 


Tender hands uplift the benumbed, uncon- 
scious world; a divine breath revives it; winter 
flies to take refuge on the highest Carpathian 
mountains and in the icy hearts of Christians. 
The traces of care disappear from Israel’s wrinkled 
brow. 

In every house the walls are newly whitewashed, 
and the busy housewife searches every cranny with 
her broom to sweep out the smallest crumbs, for 
it is written in the Law, “He who eats leavened 
bread, or drinks fermented drink, or keeps any of 
it under his roof in these days, he shall be cut 
off from the Community of Israel.” So, to make 
sure of having nothing leavened in his possession, 
every one hastens to make a fictitious contract 
with the poorest Christian in the village for the 

[1431 


THES HAD OO Wael0 Fr wes GR DES 


sale of his shop and all that it contains. The 
baker transfers to him his flour, his oven and his 
kneading-trough; the publican gives up his bar 
and the grocer his stores, and even those who do 
not trade in any fermented food sell their shops 
like the rest, for how can they swear to the Holy 
of Holies (blessed may He be!) that no mouse 
has dropped a crumb of leavened bread or any 
unclean scrap in any corner? 

Oh, miracle, no more traffic and no more bar- 
gaining going on at Hounfalou! A table is set 
up in the middle of the synagogue, and the corn 
for the special bread which alone is permitted in 
these days is poured out upon it. Young and 
old come crowding round the ritual corn, sifting 
the grains one by one to make sure that not one 
of them is sprouting. Long ringlets, white or 
black or tawny, dangle from the bent heads over 
the beautiful golden heap. It is like a revival of 
half-fabulous days when Israel was a pastoral and 
agricultural people. 

In the streets of the village there is not one 
Christian child to be seen. For while there is joy 
in the Jewish houses over the final arrangements 
for the feast, horrible stories are being told that 
make the children shudder with fear in the Tzi- 
ganes’ huts and the Hungarians’ cottages. It is 
said that in the celebration of their feast those 
cursed Jews require the blood of a little Christian. 


[144] 


DN EXT YOR AR, CA TIERIUIS A LEB M0 


Every year they steal one away, carry him into 
their synagogue, prick him in a thousand places, 
and drain off all his blood into a great red vase 
which is held by a little Jew. Then at last they 
kill him by driving a great nail into his head 
and another into his heart, and mix his blood 
with their bread of damnation; for they know 
well enough, those Judases, that they crucified the 
true God, and they hope that by mingling a little 
Christian blood with their own they may partici- 
pate in the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Ah, they are not so eager now, those little ras- 
cals of the village, to sing their famous song of 
the bacon! They don’t run after Reuben now, 
as they did at Christmas-time, to cut off his 
ringlets. All through this week they take care not 
to pass by the Jewish houses or to play near the 
synagogue, and if they should see even in the 
far distance that Red Jew whose office it is to 
kill the hens and geese and any other creature 
needed by the Community, they take to their 
heels, and prudently seek refuge behind the rail- 
ings in the yards of their houses. 


The splendid evening had come at last. Round 
the bright table in the house of the long-footed 
Jew six kings were sitting, or rather reclining on 
soft down pillows and crimson eiderdowns, lean- 
ing negligently on the left side with elbow bent 

[145] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


and the head supported in the left hand, in the 
noble attitude of the Princes in old pictures. 
The party consisted of Amram Trebitz, Hertz 
Wolf, an old beggar invited for the feast, Reuben, 
Hannah and Guitelé, all wearing bonnets with 
thirteen bands of fur or wigs of satin, just like 
those of King Solomon and of Queen Esther. On 
the white cloth shone the silver candelabra, the 
flowery plates, the many-coloured glasses, and the 
richly gilded cup to which presently the great 
prophet Elias would come, and touch it with his 
lips. And before each guest, between two plates, 
one empty and the other filled with salt water, 
there was a little pile of three unleavened loaves 
upon which were balanced a goblet of sugared 
wine, peeled almonds and gingerbread, the gullet 
of a fowl, horse-radish, bitter herbs, and an egg 
roasted hard in the ashes. 

Shyly and without an effort, Reuben brought 
out the well-known ritual questions by which 
every good child of Israel opens the great feast 
of the Passover. “Why is this night distinguished 
from all other nights? Why on other nights may 
we eat as we please either of leavened or of un- 
leavened bread, but on this night of the unleav- 
ened only? Why on other nights may we eat 
of what herbs we choose, and on this night of 
bitter herbs only? Why on other nights do we 
never dip our food in salted water, and why on 


[146] 


poe Xo VIE AIR A Ted ee RASA EEE Ml" 


this night do we dip it so twice? Why on other 
nights do we eat either sitting or leaning on one 
elbow, and on this night only leaning on one 
elbow?” 

Then in a voice of triumph Hertz Wolf-with-feet- 
that-reach-to-his-neck replied by reading the old 
legendary story: ‘We were bondslaves with Pha- 
raoh in Egypt, and the Eternal, our God, brought 
us out from that land by a mighty hand and a 
stretched-out arm.” 

Weighted with antiquity, filled full with his- 
tories, loaded with the sorrows and the joys of 
Israel, that ancient Scripture related the afflic- 
tions of their ancestors and the favours heaped 
by the Eternal upon His elect people: the boils 
which He sent upon the Egyptian tyrants, the 
blood and the wild beasts, the hail and the frogs, 
and the murrain upon the animals, the grasshop- 
pers and the lice and the ulcers, and the darkness 
and the death of the First-Born. At each one of 
these plagues recorded in the ancient writing 
Reuben dipped his finger in his glass and let fall 
a drop of the joyful wine of the Passover as a 
water of gladness, an elixir of hope. Hertz Wolf 
only interrupted his recital to swallow at one 
draught one of the four glasses of wine which 
must be drunk during the feast; then he resumed 
the ancient chant: “What does the wise child 
ask? What says the simple one? What is this? 

[1471 


TAXE VS HE ADO We Off ETENERCRONEIS 


What is the meaning of these laws, these statutes, 
these ceremonies, which the Eternal, our God, has 
appointed for us on this day?” 

If bitter herbs were eaten, it was to recall the 
memory of the bondage in Egypt, the labour with 
clay and with brick, the slavery in the fields and 
the other burdens laid upon their ancestors; if 
they ate of unleavened bread it was because the 
dough was not yet risen in the ovens when the 
King of Kings, the Holy of Holies (blessed may 
He be!) showed Himself to His children, and 
bade them haste out of Egypt; if they set before 
the guests the gullet of a fowl, it was in memory 
of the lamb which their ancestors killed while 
Jerusalem*was yet standing, in gratitude to the 
Lord who spared the houses of the Jews when He 
smote the Egyptians. The hard-cooked egg and 
the salted water also recalled the mourning and 
the destruction of the Temple. And there in a 
corner of the room were the traveller's staff and 
the little bundle to symbolize that Israel was ever 
an exile among the nations and always ready to 
set forth. 

But at last came the eagerly expected words: 
“Here they stop speaking, they drink and give 
themselves to pleasure.” Guitelé set the steam- 
ing carp on the table, and immediately there 
broke forth the mad gaiety so quickly excited 
among these high-strung and often-fasting Jews 


[148] 


ie NEEEX Lette APR METRE RAS AV LAE M Le 


merely by the odour of meat and wine; and the 
legendary story gave place to jokes and witticisms 
directed equally against Hebrews and Christians, 
which, first uttered in these remote villages, will 
be echoed far away in sordid garrets or luxurious 
chambers by the laughter of the exiled Jew. 

Reuben was still too young to share in that 
laughter, that strange, cruel, bitter laughter which 
from century to century has been the surest shield 
and the sharpest weapon of Israel. Although he 
was already aware of the presence in his life and 
in that of his people of a mystery which was a 
source at once of pride and of pain, he was still 
untouched by that cruel irony which spares noth- 
ing, pierces everything, even what lies deepest in 
the heart. The day would come, and soon enough, 
when he would laugh in his turn. 

Against his sleepy cheek, half hidden by the 
curls escaping from his velvet bonnet, blew the 
breath of that jeering laughter, not without leav- 
ing its invisible trace. He lay on his crimson 
eiderdown, struggling against sleepiness, for the 
moment was approaching when the Prophet Elias 
would enter the room and drain the sacred cup 
which had just been filled with wine. 

The long tale of the Passover was taken up 
once more, and the imposing verses of the Psalms 
sounded in his drowsy ears like the blows of a 
hammer on the anvil: 

[149] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 
“Give thanks to the God of all Gods, 
For His mercy endureth for ever! 
Who smote the Egyptians, 
For His mercy endureth for ever! 
And slew mighty kings, 
For His mercy endureth for ever! 
Sihon king of the Amorites, 
For His mercy endureth for ever! 
And Og the king of Bazan, 
For His mercy endureth for ever!” 


But now, from the abyss of shadows and old 
time, out of the wind and the snow, the Prophet 
had arrived. The old beggar got up to open the 
door to him, and the others all rose to their feet. 
The night air blew into the over-heated room; the 
flame of the candles wavered. Reuben felt the 
mantle of Elias brush softly against his cheek! 
He did not take his eyes from the cup the great 
Prophet was to drink from. He had drunk! 
Reuben was sure of it. He had seen the wine 
sink in the glittering crystal. 

Every one emptied at one draught his last cere- 
monial glass, and Reuben himself put his lips to 
the magic cup which Elias had touched with his 
own. 

With that last drop of wine he quite lost his 
head. As if in a dream he heard the company ex- 
changing the salute repeated among the dispersed 
People every Passover night since the Exile and 


[150] 


MÉNIEIX TI HAR CATH E RU SAVE M li 


the Fall of Jerusalem. “Next year at Jerusalem!” 

It is the adieu of a faith without assurance, the 
word of invincible hope and of bitter irony, fall- 
ing like the leaf of the willow upon the mirror 
of a sleeping pool; a ripple moves for a moment, 
and is lost in the silence and the night. 

His mother carried him away in her arms. Just 
for an instant he opened his eyes. And as the 
old beggar went out he saw the Prophet Elias 
himself departing from the room. 


[151] 


CHA PAI BIR Vil Tel 
THE ROSA Di Ov oH te eaG ROO Sts 


Where then art thou, Jerusalem? Could one 
see from the summit of the Carpathian mountains 
thy shining golden houses? How shall one reach 
theer Is it by the path that passes the Tziganes’ 
cottages, or the winding road by the house of the 
village Magnater How many towns, how many 
villages as large as Hounfalou must be left behind 
before one arrives in the Holy City where for 
hundreds and hundreds of years a Virgin has wept 
over the fallen ruins of the Temple? 

So mused the child like a waxen doll. 

But he who goes on such a journey must have 
a courageous soul and a heart that nothing terri- 
fies. Reuben, it is true, had long ago ceased to 
be afraid of the geese; for among all the animals 
God has made, the goose is an excellent creature. 
What would become of the Jew without the goose? 
Who would give him feathers for the Passover 
cushions, and fat for the Saturday dinner and for 
the cakes for the feast of Esther? The goose is 
the Jew’s pig. The Christian children, of course, 

[152] 


DEE SR OFA Da LOW iL HBG R O'S:S 


are as fierce as ever, and still shout in his ears 
the terrible song of the bacon. However, when 
we are three or four against one we can tackle 
them! But two things still inspire him with ir- 
repressible horror: dogs, and the Crucifix on the 
cross-roads! 

Oh, those Crosses that cover the face of the 
earth! Why is it that as you pass them they cast 
on you a shadow so different from the shadow 
of houses or of trees? Why is it so cold and so 
freezing? Why has the Lord forbidden us to 
lift up our eyes towards them? Why for forty 
days will He not listen to the prayers of the Jew 
who has been so rash as to look at them? 

And yet it seemed to him that if he dared 
once stare into the face of one of those iron Christs 
he would not be afraid of it any more. “Master 
of the world!” he cried one morning at his prayers, 
“every night I will rise, as my father does, at 
midnight, to recite the psalm of the destruction 
of the Temple; and besides this, twice in the week, 
on Mondays and on Wednesdays, I will not spread 
any goose-grease on my bread. But I will look 
at the Cross.” 

He had made this promise, and now he was on 
the road. Under a sky heavy with thunder the 
village lay as if asleep among the sweet-smelling 
lime trees. The dogs, curled up in the dust with 
their heads between their paws and their tongues 


[153] 


THES H'AID O'W (OP RHE CROSS 


lolling out, lay motionless, dozing in the shadow 
of the houses. The sunflowers with their wide- 
open faces stared upon him as he went by. With 
his little round hat pushed back and his hands 
in the pockets of his caftan, he marched on with 
a firm step towards the great Cross that stands 
at the entrance of the forest. But as soon as 
he got beyond the Tziganes’ huts, and found him- 
self alone on the road, his fine self-confidence de- 
serted him. He sat down on the bank, and gazing 
straight before him, he looked long without see- 
ing them at the great billows of corn undulating 
far into the distance, at the villages enclosed in 
their belt of acacias and the thick coppery clouds 
piling themselves up above the fields as though 
they would set the crops on fire. 

Ah, how far away is Jerusalem! Neither his 
father nor his grandfather had ever undertaken 
so long a journey. What is the use of going even 
as far as the Calvary? If any harm should hap- 
pen to him, who could protect him in that lonely 
spot? But in that solitary place no one could 
surprise him in the act of lifting his eyes to a 
Cross; this thought reassured him. 

With a tightening of his heart, half ready to 
turn back upon the way, he moved on with fal- 
tering steps in the direction of the forest. Above 
his head the coppery clouds had turned a glowing 
red, revealing within their cavernous depths huge 


[154] 


HOMO O AIDE TR ONE EM CLR CSS 


furnaces in which the storm was brewing. A light 
caressing breeze began bowing the tall heads of 
corn in the plain; and along the edge of the 
wood it stirred the leaves of the beeches and the 
horn-beams that had been so still all the morn- 
ing. 

He hesitated; he dared not go any farther. He 
wished he were that tree he had just passed which 
stayed there quietly behind him, or those red and 
blue flowers blazing in the corn, or that pebble 
that he kicked, that rolled a moment and then 
stopped. But in vain did the ten thousand An- 
gels on his right hand endeavour to hold him back 
upon the dusty road; ten thousand Demons on 
his left were still pushing him forward. One 
step compels another on the path of the forbid- 
den Tree. That lurking curiosity which has led 
so many children of Israel along that path, and 
on others like it, seemed drawing him by the 
hand. With uneasy mind and downcast eyes he 
went. And suddenly, there in the dust, a great 
shadow stopped him, the frightful shadow of the 
Cross. 

There it was, standing close beside him. Now 
he had only to lift his eyes to see towering into 
the sky that terrible Crucifix. A moment longer 
he hesitated; then gathering up his courage he 
exclaimed under his breath: “Cursed be thou 
who madest a new religion!” In the same instant 


[155] 


1H EB MS ANA DD O!W OR AMENER CIRORSS 


he turned round. And they two, the Christ and 
the child, stood face to face. 

It is a poor village image of Christ, painful to 
look upon, hanging forward as though bowed 
down beneath the heat of the day. The crown 
of thorns is all sideways on the head, the rains 
of innumerable winters have so effaced the col- 
ours with which some peasant artisan had daubed 
it that it has actually a corpse-like air. A little 
dark blood is still to be seen upon the side pierced 
by the lance; the eyes are half closed, and on the 
lips there hovers something which makes them 
seem to smile at the child. 

For a long while Reuben gazed at the great 
crucified body upon the oaken beam, as though, 
knowing he should never in his life behold it 
again, he would impress it upon his mind for ever. 
All fear had departed. Like the thistledown float- 
ing hither and thither in the summer wind, little 
thoughts came and went in his tranquillized heart. 

“But he does not look wicked! Why did he do 
us so much evil? What made him think of in- 
venting a new religion? Perhaps when he was 
little some one cut off his ringlets? Or did his 
mother forget to cut his nails on a Saturday? 
Perhaps he did not say the benediction com- 
manded when one eats the fruits of the earth or 
when one sees a holy Rabbir Perhaps he too 
went into a church; and did he look at a Cross?” 


[156] 


HP EMMNRIO AID AI OM EM CROSS 


While he was thus thinking, suddenly it became 
night. Thick darkness descended over all things. 
Lightnings flashed from heaven, the ancient thun- 
ders of Sinai shook the world, and the rain of 
the Deluge burst in a flood over the Cross, the 
child, the forest, and the wide plain of corn- 
fields. One lightning flash followed another, and 
the noise of the thunder rushed after them so 
quickly that he had no time to finish the bene- 
diction for lightning before he had to begin the 
benediction for thunder. And soon he thought 
no more of making a benediction at all. He fled 
at his utmost speed towards the village, whose 
roofs he could see shining behind the curtain of 
rain. He ran, and this time also the Cross came 
flying in pursuit of him. Behind him was the 
ice-cold breath, the dreadful outstretched hand. 
... Was it the Christ, was it the wind that car- 
ried away his hat? . . . Ah, now his head was 
bare before the Master of the world! He crossed 
his hands over his forehead, not so much to shield 
it from the wet as to hide from the Lord the 
shame of his uncovered head, and redoubled his 
speed through the storm-tossed billows of corn, 
which rocked like furious waves of the sea, 
breaking upon the edge of the path as though 
they would submerge him before he reached 
the village. Everything was cracking, groaning, 
streaming with water. . . . Could it be possible 


[157] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


that in the midst of this deluge there was the 
sound of a violin? ... It was the everlasting 
crincrin from the Tziganes’ cottages greeting his 
entry into the village. The courtyards were all 
strewn with branches broken by the wind, the dogs 
were shivering under the carts, the sunflowers 
bowed their heavy heads, jets of water poured 
from the church gutters into the middle of the 
square, forming a river that swept away the 
scented flowers of the lime trees. The poor syna- 
gogue with its roof of thatch looked like a hay- 
stack half demolished by the rain. He reached 
it, he rushed in, mad with fright and dripping 
with water. 

It was the hour of the prayer of Min’ha. A 
few pious folk were at prayer there, shouting and 
waving their hands and arms in the air as though 
to conjure away the tempest. Drenched with rain, 
wet through, shuddering, he crouched against the 
wall, and wondered in his terror whether it were the 
Christ who did not look wicked who had sent 
the storm against him, or whether it were the 
Eternal Sabaoth who considered that in return 
for looking at a Cross it was not enough to offer 
Him an hour of his sleep and two days’ allow- 
ance of the goose-grease that his mother spread 
upon his bread. 

Gradually the thunder receded into the distance, 

[158] 


DA RO A DMROMP IEP EN GROSS 


as if it gave up the attempt to reach him in the 
house of the Lord. 

Oh, how merciful is the God of the Jews! How 
good it is to be in His Temple! Prayer enfolds 
him and lulls him to sleep with its monotonous 
roar. Is it a dream? The tempest has ceased 
all around him. Even the prayers have ended. 
What a wonderful silence! . . . Why is the Me- 
lamed carrying him in his arms? . . . Is it his 
mother who is undressing him, and drying him 
with her apron? . . . His teeth chatter; his whole 
body trembles. Oh, how cold it is under the thick 
red eiderdown! 

All through the week the fever has not left 
him. But as Hertz Wolf and Guitelé watch by 
their sick child it does not for one moment occur 
to them that it is not healthy for a little boy to 
spend all his days in the Heder, in the draught of 
life-giving air which blows through the western 
wall, or that such an existence is the cause that 
their Reuben’s little body is so frail and exces- 
sively nervous. Do not all the little Jews of 
Hounfalou live so? Does a little Jew need fresh 
air, exercise and playr Is not the study of the 
Thora sufficient to keep him in health? Hertz 
Wolf and Guitelé do not trace his illness to the 
school, or to over-work, or the rain of a few days 
ago; for sickness, according to a pious Jew, is 


[159] 


T HeEOS HVADIO MAO FMI IENCARIOES TS 


never sent except as a punishment for sin; death 
itself is always a chastisement for some transgres- 
sion of the Law. They consider, therefore, the 
six hundred and thirteen commandments, the neg- 
lect of which may lead to death, and ask them- 
selves which of these they have broken, that the 
Lord should send the Angel of Death to their 
house. Have they let the child wear material 
woven of cotton and wool together? Have they 
let him eat a piece of meat cooked in a vessel 
that once contained milk? or given him milk in a 
vessel once used for meatr 

Ah, if they knew that their child had gone to 
the forest to look at a Cross, they would not 
have been so long in perplexity! 

In the village every one is saying that the son 
of the long-footed Jew is past hope. His poor 
face against the pillow seems nothing but two 
great miserable eyes that recognize nobody. Be- 
fore him are villages in which each stone, by some 
frightful miracle, has turned into a dog, and for- 
ests where every tree changes into a Cross. And 
amid the lightning and thunder a tall old man 
with ram’s horns and a white beard like a new 
taliss reaching to his knees is presenting to him 
his mysterious Podzuka upon a table of stone. 

What, then, is the Podzuka? It is a bouquet 
of the most beautiful flowers of the world. And 
which are the most beautiful flowers? The pink, 


[160] 


erie (OFAC ee Oo Fie ibe CROSS 


the rose, or the geranium? None of these is sweet 
enough or bright enough to make a bouquet fit 
for God. The most beautiful flowers in the world 
are the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the 
Podzuka is composed of those words from the 
holy Thora that you must say in answer to the 
Eternal when He calls you. For in everyday life 
one may very well be called Reuben, or Israel, 
or Moses. Those are good Jewish names such 
as your parents use when they say: “Reuben, Is- 
rael, or Moses, get up, and go to the Heder.” 
But on Saturdays do you wear your ordinary 
clothes? And when you appear before the throne 
of the Eternal shall you say simply: “My name 
is Reuben, or Israel, or Moses’? No, one must 
tell Him one’s Podzuka. 

And Reuben sees the tall old man presenting to 
him his divine name, sometimes in the shape of 
flaming letters coming nearer and nearer till they 
settle on his forehead and burn him, sometimes in 
the form of Sabbath bread as the letter Alef was, 
on his first day at the Heder. He stretches his 
little arms to seize the moving letters floating past 
him; sometimes he thinks he has caught one, but 
just as his hand is closing on it the old man pulls 
the string, the letter vanishes through the ceiling, 
and burning with fever he falls back unconscious 
on his bed. 

It was in vain that his little comrades, like those 


[161] 


TL, POE W SHCA‘ DOL W. tO%P Sieh ea CORA occ 


who had danced before round his cradle to drive 
away the Fairy Lilith and the troop of bad Angels, 
formed once more a circle round him, each one 
offering to the Eternal one minute of his existence 
to prolong the days of their poor companion. In 
vain his mother had daubed his face with a coal 
dipped in water. In vain Hertz Wolf hastened to 
the Rabbi and asked him to change Reuben’s name 
to David—God having resolved, perhaps, that a 
little Jew called Reuben should die, without de- 
ciding anything about one who bore the name of 
David. 

The keen-eyed Angel of Death would not be 
duped by such a clumsy subterfuge; he did not 
relax his hold upon David any more than his hold 
upon Reuben, and Reuben-David was dying. 

But oh, not yet, Master of the world! There 
still remained one last resource. That was to sell 
him to a Christian peasant, as at the Passover one 
sells the leavened bread, the alcohol and other fer- 
mented products. But this barbarian method, 
though commonly employed in the Carpathians 
where many children of Hounfalou and of other 
places have been saved by it, is held in horror 
by the Jew from Poland. His whole soul revolted 
at the thought of selling his child like an unclean 
thing and expelling him, even for a moment and 
by a feigned contract, from the Community of 
Abraham. The Melamed, however, with the 

[162] 


Dre ROADS TO ut HB CR OS'S 


Rabbi, the Sacrificer and the influential Jews of 
Hounfalou generally, maintained that the thing 
was lawful. 

“Follow my reasoning, friend,’ said Reb Jan- 
kele, pulling at his scanty beard. “If God sends 
you sickness it is because He wishes to break the 
tie which binds you to your child. But if Hertz 
Wolf himself should break this chain, and if he 
sell his son to the Schabés goy, does he not thus 
testify that he has comprehended the will of the 
Lord, and that he bows down and humbles him- 
self” Concerning your repugnance, friend, to 
selling your child like a fermented product, I re- 
ply, with the Scripture, that a live ass is better than 
a rotting Solomon. The Thora tells us that Life 
is the first gift of God and the most beautiful of 
His creatures: the first duty of the Jew is to de- 
fend a thing so precious against all that may at- 
tack it, and against the wrath of God itself. 
Such is the opinion of Reb Siméon, Reb Jehuda, 
Reb Eliezer and of many illustrious doctors be- 
side. And Rabbi Ben Bag Bag did not hesitate 
to write that in order to save a human life it is 
permitted even to infringe the Law.” 

Hertz Wolf cited texts to the contrary, op- 
posed doctors with doctors, and in the heat of 
the pilpoul he almost forgot his child and gave 
himself up entirelv to the pleasure of disputation. 
He overwhelmed the ignorant men of Hounfalou 


[163] 


TH ES HAD AVSNOLF RIRE MICARICNSTS 


under the weight of his arguments, regardless of 
the fact that he was battling against his own 
last hope and triumphantly destroying the forlorn 
chance of recovery that still remained for his son. 

In the street he continued disputing with the 
Melamed, combative, gesticulating, fertile in fresh 
arguments. How great was his erudition! How 
subtle his intellect! Still thrilling with the excite- 
ment of the debate he reached his door, kissed 
the mezuzzab and entered the room. But there 
suddenly, with one stroke of his wing, the dreaded 
Angel of Death cast all his pride to the ground. 

There was no sign of life in Reuben any more, 
except his faint breathing. Poor Guitelé wept 
tears into the brandy that she was serving to the 
Tzigane and the Hungarian. Silently in his own 
heart Hertz Wolf continued the pilpoul, but as his 
eagerness to prove himself in the right gave way 
before sweet hope, the words of Reb Jehuda and 
of Reb Eliezer, the pronouncements of Reb Ben 
Bag Bag recurred to his memory, and the plain- 
tive moanings of the child gave them an extraor- 
dinary emphasis and a power that the lips of the 
Melamed, the Rabbi or the Schames did not pos- 
sess. Whom should he believe” What course 
should he take? Whose counsel should he listen 
tor 

All at once, through the darkness came a flash 
of heavenly lightning. The famous golden lan- 

[164] 


Lorre ROP AI DIET OATIEEEAICG KC StS 


tern, the lantern of Gam Zou, illuminated his per- 
plexity; its magic rays told him in letters of fire, 
“Hertz Wolf, leave the Talmud alone, leave the pil- 
poul alone, and let thine own heart speak.” 

At daybreak he quitted the house, trembling 
even more than he had done on that night when 
he went in the dark to the synagogue to unloose 
the cords of the Law. The young day, spar- 
kling with dew, was rising slowly from the green 
depths of the Carpathians, and the geranium flow- 
ers and the carnations in the windows were wak- 
ing from their dreams of the night. 

One has small chance, in the courtyard of the 
peasant Pavlik, of admiring pigs and geese and 
fowls, or the horse or the cow—God’s beautiful 
creatures that speak to us of prosperity. The 
Schabès goy have nothing but one poor house- 
dog, who at the approach of the long-footed 
Jew, came to sniff at him disgustedly, and then 
returned snarling to his bed as if disappointed at 
his leanness. 

Pavlik, warned by his dog, appeared on his 
threshold. He, too, was but little pleased at the 
sight of the publican’s son-in-law. Hertz Wolf 
wished him good morning very politely; the peas- 
ant replied with an indescribable mixture of 
haughtiness and apprehension. 

“T come to sell you something,” said the Jew, 
without further preamble. 


[165] 


HE SS RAD D'WEOIF NT AE Ca GO ts 


“And how can I buy, Jew-with-feet-to-his- 
neck?” retorted the Schabès goy, throwing over 
his wretched empty yard, his dilapidated house 
and his own person a glance, mutely eloquent, 
that cried: “You are mocking me, cursed Jew! 
You know well enough that your father-in-law has 
taken all that I had, my horse, my pigs, my 
geese, and my wife, poor Marinka, who died of 
starvation! You know well enough that I drank 
it all away in the tavern of the Stooping Jew, 
your father-in-law, and that he still has me down 
in his account-book to the tune of forty florins!” 

The dog, as though he understood and shared 
all his master’s resentment, got up once more and 
walked round the long-footed Jew, showing his 
teeth. Hertz Wolf said prudently: “Let us go 
into the house.” 

And as soon as they were in the parlour: 

“Listen, Pavlik,’ he continued. “Our son Reu- 
ben is sick. Buy him from me for two silver 
florins and you will owe only thirty more to the 
Stooping Jew, my father-in-law.” 

Shadowy thoughts drifted like clouds through 
the mind of the peasant. Queer people, these 
Jews! Why at Easter-tide did they make over 
their shops and their houses to him? And why 
did they come when their children were sick and 
sell them to him for a few silver florins? 


[166] 


MES ER OA DT OM ELEN C'RIENSIS 


But these ideas, passing among the vapours of 
his brain, did not occupy him long. Accustomed 
from childhood as he was to the madness of the 
Jews he saw one thing only: that in Amrams 
book, that terrible account-book which wielded 
over him the magic power of the creditor, which 
dragged him by the arm on Sundays into the 
tavern where there blazed against his name in 
infernal letters the cipher of forty florins, he 
should now be entered for no more than thirty. 

They went towards the window to sign the 
paper by which Hertz Wolf Lebowitz gave up his 
son to Pavlik for the sum of two florins. Behind 
the filthy panes, between the geranium and the 
carnation, there glittered a bottle adorned with a 
label; over its cork was a cover of pleated pink 
paper such as one sees in apothecaries’ shops. It 
was the drug that some doctor had given to poor 
Marinka, whose death had prevented her from 
drinking it. Pavlik had kept the bottle among 
the flower-pots as a souvenir as well as an orna- 
ment. 

“That too,” he said, “might do good to the little 
Jew. I will sell it to you for one florin.” 

Every father is weak in a matter concerning 
his child. Hertz Wolf bought the bottle. And 
with a mind distracted by fear of having sinned 
against the Law by delivering up his son to the 

[1671 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 
God of Pavlik and of the Christians, he returned 
home and pinned upon the red eiderdown the con- 
tract upon which Schabès goÿ who could not 
write, had rudely traced a Cross. 


[168] 


CHEAP OTS E Rog tex 
ete Bie SUPPER NCATE USAT E> Sa ACN GiE RR 


Did the God of Pavlik and the Christians prove 
kinder than the irascible God of the Jews? Or 
was it the effect of that mysterious liquid in the 
bottle whose name and composition no one had 
ever known? Gradually the fever abated. The 
Angel of Death, as if regretfully, turned away on 
his dark wings from the little too-inquisitive Jew 
upon whom had been set the sign of the Cross. 

The things about him resumed their familiar 
friendly air. No longer among insane delirious 
dreams, he felt himself, merely with a mild sur- 
prise, floating as it were between heaven and earth. 

On this warm afternoon he was in the yard, sit- 
ting on the tree-trunk which served as a bench. 
His mother, to amuse him, had hung round his 
face some of the long golden-yellow tufts which 
grow on the bearded maize-pods, and the simple 
pleasure of wearing on his chin this flowery beard 
like King David’s led him for the first time to 
look with a smile at the things around him: the 
acacia in the yard, the distant forest, the plain, 


[169] 


HYENE MST YA D O WP AO )E A EAB GR iO ESS 


the great cloudless sky, the creaking wagons pass- 
ing behind the palisade loaded with the beautiful 
sheaves from the harvest field, and the Jews, God’s 
people, hastening home to the village because the 
day was drawing to its end and soon the bright 
star of the Sabbath would appear. 

To a child who is coming back to life all things 
are miraculous and new. Where is that man go- 
ing? Where has this dog come from?’ Whither 
goes the wind and the leaf that it carries away? 

The Schames was going from house to house 
shouting his old familiar summons, “Bad herein! 
To the bath, Jews!” Chattering, gesticulating 
groups went past on their way to the mikwa (the 
ritual bath), every one carrying in a handkerchief 
clean linen and his Saturday boots and caftan. 
There was the distant sound of a creaking axle 
coming from the gipsies’ quarter. Was it the cart 
bringing home his father and grandfather from 
their weekly round in the country? or the egg- 
collector’s trap? or the carriage that brings the 
Princess of the Sabbath from the land of pearl 
and emerald? or the chariot of the great King 
Nebuchadnezzar? 

It was neither Amram’s cart, nor the egg- 
collector’s trap, nor the light carriage of the Queen 
of the Sabbath yoked to twenty pairs of mules 
with tinkling bells, nor the chariot of the great 
King Nebuchadnezzar. It was a clumsy wagon 


[170] 


THE SUPERNATURAL STRANGER 


such as may often be seen in Poland, with one 
horse harnessed to the pole, and an awning of 
dusty tarpaulin supported on hoops. It stopped 
by the palisade; an old man of gigantic stature 
got down from it; his eyes sparkled deep-set under 
the brows, his beard was long and white like a 
clean new taliss. And ready as Reuben was to 
take the greatest marvel as something quite nat- 
ural, and the most natural events as marvellous, 
he was astounded to recognize in the old man 
the one he had seen in his illness, who had rams’ 
horns and presented to him his Podzuka. 

He would gladly have fled away from his bench 
and run to take refuge with his mother; but the 
stranger had already caught him in his arms, lift- 
ing him up and gazing into the dear little face with 
the beard of maize falling away from it. 

“God has preserved thee!” he said. 

Then turning his eyes toward heaven: 

“Praise be to Thee, Eternal, our God, King of 
the universe, Thou who healest the sick!” 

Guitelé, carrying the Saturday bread which she 
had just taken from the oven, was bringing it 
out of the kitchen to cool it when she saw the old 
man setting the child down again upon the bench. 

“Enter, Batshi,’ 1 said she, giving him the greet- 
ing of all beggars who arrive on a Friday evening. 
“You shall pass the Sabbath with us.” 


1A friendly name, meaning “Little Uncle.” 


[171] 


T'HLE Y StH AD OW?) (0 Fee CIR Gis 


At this moment Hertz Wolf and Reb Amram 
arrived in their rattling carriage loaded with 
newly flayed skins. Hertz Wolf jumped out, in 
his surprise letting fall the skins he was carry- 
ing. 

“Welcome, my father,’ he said, taking his 
hands and lifting them to his lips. 

“Master of the world, it’s the father-in-law!” 
cried Guitelé. “Excuse me, Rabbi Sofer; I took 
you for a beggar!” 

“There is no offence in that, my daughter,” re- 
plied Reb Eljé, “for you receive a beggar as 
though he were your father-in-law.” 

The three men kissed the mezuzzah and en- 
tered the house, whence they presently reappeared, 
on their way to the ritual bath and then to the 
synagogue. 

Guitelé was busy in the kitchen making her 
final preparations for the meal. Reuben, left 
alone in the yard under the shivering lime tree, 
gave rein to the wildest fancies. 

What was the mystery of his grandfather’s re- 
semblance to the man with rams’ horns whom he 
had seen in his delirium? How had he passed 
through space, invisible to every eye? Why had 
he arrived to-day, telling no one of his coming? 

Questions like these whirled feverishly through 
his mind still agitated by past terrors and the 
shock of illness. 


[172] 


THE SUPERNATURAL STRANGER 


Then suddenly a terrifying explanation flashed 
through his head: his grandfather was aware of 
all that had happened on the day of the great 
thunderstorm; he had come all the way from Po- 
land on purpose to tell his father and mother that 
Reuben had looked at the Cross! 

Such anguish overwhelmed him that he dared 
not stir from the bench, but sat there as cold and 
motionless as the silver candelabra the servant 
was setting on the table. The long evening 
shadows already filled the yard when his mother 
came to fetch him and give him his Saturday 
clothes. Joyless, he put on his fine silk caftan and 
his beautiful new boots; and he who as a rule took 
such pleasure in the festal preparations watched 
his mother with mournful eyes as she placed the 
Saturday loaves on the table and lighted up the 
seven-branched candlestick: for him the candles 
shed no brilliant light and the odour of goose- 
grease and cinnamon and ginger did not gladden 
the house. 

“What is the matter, my Rubenkar” asked the 
kind Guitelé. “Art thou not proud and pleased 
to see thy grandfather Reb Eljé? Come now; 
laugh, Rubenka!” 

He was in no laughing mood. The prayer was 
finished and there was much noise in the yard. 
Reb Eljé, Reb Amram, Hertz Wolf, their beauti- 
ful angels, the Queen of the Sabbath and all the 

[173] 


THES) HA DIOW. WOR a HBO SES 


villagers with them, escorting the Sofer, invaded 
the tavern, pausing on the threshold to sing: 


“A virtuous woman, happy is he who possesses her! 
She is a treasure more precious than pearls.” 


How beautiful and how comforting were those 
Sabbath songs! But only five minutes before 
the storm, the sun had been shining on the Cross! 

What lightning, what thunder would presently 
burst forth anew upon his head? Would the 
grandfather speak now? Was he going to tell all 
these people how he had looked at the Cross? 

Reb Eljé, meanwhile, had pronounced the bene- 
diction for wine. The cup went round from 
mouth to mouth, and songs rang out accompanied 
by clapping of hands to mark the time. A tran- 
quil smile beamed on the face of the Sofer who, 
among these Hounfalou Jews so extraordinarily 
devoid of calm or serenity, still preserved as 
though by miracle the dignity of olden times. 

“Ah, father-in-law,” said Guitelé, noticing his 
eyes fixed on Rubenka, “he has been so ill! What 
a fright we were in about him!” At these words 
poor Reuben was bathed in a sweat of anguish. 

“My daughter,” replied the Sofer, with his un- 
alterable smile, “let us not revive painful thoughts 
at this hour; to-day is the Seventh Day.” 

Guitelé hung her head, abashed at having for- 

[174] 


AMPEMS CL P/E'RIN ADUIR AlLIISITIR A'N'GER 


gotten the command not to sadden the holy Sab- 
bath with profane ideas or even by recollection 
of past griefs And Reuben, delivered for the 
moment from his misery, felt himself come back 
to life. 

The whole of the next day was spent either in 
the synagogue or in visiting, eating and singing. 

The old man still showed a calm and pleasant 
countenance as though life for him were nothing 
but peace and happiness. Then came the evening 
and the adieu to the Princess. All the Com- 
munity, men, women, and children, repaired to 
Amram’s house to see the great Sofer of Bels 
performing the sacred rites. 

Joining his fingers together over the flame of 
the candle he pronounced the benediction of Him 
who created fire and light, and his long hands 
shone transparent as though they were made of 
light and fire. 

' Then he took the box of perfumes and said the 
benediction of Him who created sweet-smelling 
spices. With what dignity he inhaled the dried 
roses and carnations and passed the box from one 
side of his face to the other! Then he poured into 
his plate the remains of the brandy, took the 
lighted wax taper, extinguished it in the spirit and 
said: “Blessed be He Who has made a difference 
between the Sabbath and the other days of the 
week.” And although Reuben had been seeing 
[175] 


1h ENS H A DOW, WORST HE sO Ss 


these gestures and hearing these words ever since 
he was born, it now seemed to him that he saw 
them and heard them for the first time. Around 
that handsome countenance with its long snow- 
white beard there was an atmosphere of such pro- 
found peace that all his fear had forsaken him. 
Oh, what a beautiful Saturday! Never had can- 
dles shone more brilliantly. Never had the dried 
flowers in the perfume-box smelt so deliciously. 
When his mother put him to bed his heart was 
filled with but one feeling: pride at being the 
grandson of the famous Sofer of Bels. 

The common folk among the Jews of Hounfa- 
lou departed with the Princess, but the more im- 
portant persons remained to dinner with Amram. 
When the meal was finished they lingered for some 
time over their wine-glasses after the table was 
cleared. | 

Reuben, unable to sleep from agitation and the 
excitement of this great Saturday, listened to their 
talk of the holy town of Bels and the miracles of 
the Zadik. By and by they also took their leave, 
and when the last of the guests had gone he heard 
Reb Eljé say: 

“Now that the Sabbath is over, it is time to 
speak about this child.” 

In a moment all his terrors reappeared. Gui- 
telé gave the old man a detailed account of the 
inexplicable illness, told how the Rabbi had in- 

[176] 


PAIE SUR PER N ARE OU TRPAS EST R'AINIGYE R 


tervened, and the children had danced; how they 
had prayed and fasted, and how, after trying 
everything to save him, Hertz Wolf had sold the 
child to the poor Schabés goÿ. 

“Ah, Rabbi, Rabbi,’ she said, “we really 
thought we should lose him! How and why 
should all this happen to us? Neither Hertz 
Wolf, nor I, nor my father, has ever been able to 
guess i 

“T will tell you why,” said Reb Eljé. 

At these words Reuben leaped up in bed, beside 
himself with anguish. He tried to cry out, 
“Don’t tell it, don’t tell it, grandfather!” But no 
sound issued from his convulsed throat. 

“Do not ask any longer what sin you have com- 
mitted and why the Angel of Death has threatened 
your house,’ the old man continued. “Do not 
seek for one sin in particular: you have commit- 
ted them all in one alone.” 

Then, after a silence: 

“When, on arriving yesterday morning, I saw 
Hertz Wolf unloading the sheepskins from the 
cart, ‘It is for this,’ I said to myself, ‘that my son 
has forsaken the study of our holy Law!’ Hertz 
Wolf has left off being a son-in-law. There are 
not enough prayers now in your house. All your 
troubles come from this cause.” 

With a sigh of joy Reuben fell back upon his 
bed. The grandfather was keeping kis secret! 

[177] 





LALE ST A D'O WO EE LEE ER CRG So 


He knew and would not tell! With a sense of 
sweet relief and of boundless trust his whole body 
relaxed. Some few more words he heard, receding 
farther and farther as the thunder had died away 
after the storm, and soon he felt himself sinking 
into the depths of slumber. 

Meanwhile the conversation round the table 
continued. 

“One must live, Rabbi Sofer,’ said Amram 
timidly. ‘The wheel of time has been going 
round—the world has become ungodly . . . busi- 
ness has suffered also... . .” 

“Friend,” retorted the Sofer, “if you forsake the 
Thora, your riches will become still less.” 

“No doubt, no doubt!” replied Amram, in a 
voice that grew less and less confident. “But the 
Sofer is my witness that I have kept my word and 
even gone beyond it. I promised Reb Eljé that 
his son should be a son-in-law three years. And 
when the bishop gave me the administration of his 
estate, in gratitude to Adonai | lengthened the 
time for Hertz Wolf to be a son-in-law by five 
years. Seven years he has lived under my roof 
doing nothing; I mean doing nothing else but 
studying our holy Books. But the difficulties of 
life grow greater every day. The peasants are 
not what they used to be. Those Goim grow more 
and more wary, and competition is increasing! 
Only ten years ago we were, at the most, fifty 

[178] 


THE SUPERNATURAL STRANGER 


Jews at Hounfalou, and now there are a hundred 
of us! Oh, of course, Master of the world, one 
can never sufficiently rejoice that other Jews are 
arriving, but why must it just be at Hounfalou 
that they grow so fast, and that all the Jews of 
Poland have chosen this village to assembler . . 
Even here, there are more mouths to fill. Since 
our holy Thora gave us Reuben what miracles it 
has done! Adonai (blessed may He be!) sends 
children two at a time to Guitelé now, and all the 
family, Rabbi Sofer, wants goose-grease and 
eanee wis 

“| make no reproaches, Friend,’ Reb Eljé 
answered gently. “But however ruinous it may 
be a castle is still a castle, and however high it 
rises a dungheap remains always a dungheap. . .. 
The Hebrews of to-day have strange ways of 
giving thanks to the Eternal! For seven years 
Hertz Wolf has studied the Thora: for seven years 
the blessings of the Lord have fallen upon you. 
He has sent you Reuben; other children have 
followed him like the fruits of the vine and the 
olive branches. The bishop has given you the 
administration of his estate, in preference to two 
Christians who applied for it. And when the Lord 
has granted you such striking proofs of His care, 
how do you thank Him? By depriving Him of 
prayers, by tearing Hertz Wolf away from the 
study of the Law!” 

[179] 


THE®.S HUA DOW AOR SIU ORO SES 


How confute this evidence? Trebitz had 
nothing to say in reply to the Sofer’s discourse. 
Hertz Wolf, hanging his head, listened to his 
father and his father-in-law discussing his down- 
fall. 

“But all that is as nothing,’ continued Reb Eljé 
after a moment’s silence. “You have set upon the 
forehead of our child Reuben the foulest stain that 
can touch a good Jew. You have expelled him 
from the Community of Abraham, following the 
custom of Jews ignorant and barbarous . . .” 

“My father,’ interrupted Hertz Wolf, “it was 
not without long hesitation and consulting of our 
sacred Books that I resolved to sell the child to 
the Schabès goÿ. And I also conferred for a 
long while with the learned men of the Commun- 
y 

“Oh, there are words in plenty, my son, neither 
are sins far to seek,” retorted the Sofer. 

And suddenly abandoning the Yiddish, the vul- 
gar tongue in which he was speaking, he proceeded 
in Hebrew: 

“Folly is a clamorous woman, she is simple and 
knoweth nothing. For she sitteth at the door of 
her house on a seat in the high places of the city 
to call passengers who go right on their ways: 
‘Whoso is simple let him turn in hither.’ And as 
for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to 
him: ‘Stolen waters are sweet and bread eaten in 


[180] 


DHE SUPERNATURAL STRANGER 


secret is pleasant: the strange gods are mighty.’ 
The fool gives ear and enters into her house. But 
he knows not that the dead are there and that her 
guests are in the depth of hell.” 

Amram and Guitelé did not understand a word 
of the sacred language, but the ancient rhythm of 
it stirred the depths of their hearts. Hertz Wolf 
however recognized the proverbs of King Solomon, 
and the reproach from so high an authority re- 
duced him to silence. 

“May it please the Master of the world,’ Reb 
Eljé continued, returning to the common language, 
“that this child may wipe out by an exemplary 
life the spot with which you have marked his fore- 
head, and that he may escape the scourge which 
the Lord keeps for those who have denied Israel. 
I shall start for Bels again to-morrow. I will 
take the child away with me. In that pious town, 
uncontaminated by the Christian, I will educate 
him for the Lord, for the Thora, and the glory of 
the Jewish people. If it please God to grant me 
some more years of life, I will instruct him in my 
art. He shall become an eminent Sofer, and 
through him will be perpetuated the long line of 
Sofers which began three centuries ago with Reb 
Gedalié Lebowitz.” 

He spoke. They listened with a holy fear. 
Then, like people just escaped from deadly peril 
who begin to breathe freely once more and to look 

[181] 


LS HE ESA IA DO Wino PME ENCRES ES 


about them, they all gradually came back to a 
sense of reality. Amram carefully recalling all 
the words of the Sofer noted that the old man had 
not demanded that his son should return to the 
study of the Law: this filled him with intense in- 
ward satisfaction. Hertz Wolf, whose mind had 
not been easy since his visit to Pavlik, welcomed 
with joy his father’s proposal to take Reuben with 
him and consecrate him to the Lord. Poor Gui- 
telé alone felt her heart swell, and her eyes filled 
with tears. 

Reb Eljé saw her distress, and turned to her 
saying: 

“Thou art grieved, my daughter, to part with 
thy well-loved son. And yet I do not ask of you 
the sacrifice of Isaac. And Sarah allowed her 
CHING OT 20min eres 

“Yes, father-in-law,” she replied. “But when 
Abraham returned, you know well that Sarah was 
dead.” 

An outburst of sobbing choked her voice. Had 
she then only saved her son to lose him for a 
second time? She left the table that she might 
hide her tears. And in that dark and quiet room 
that the Thora had once filled with light and mys- 
terious sound of bells, while the three men con- 
tinued their conversation she wept silently over 
Reuben’s sleeping head. 

[182] 


AD EPS UP Ri NAL DU RIA LE SD RANGER 


Next morning, as on Amram’s departure a few 
years before, all the Jews of Hounfalou, filling the 
street with their cries and gesticulations, assembled 
round the cart which was to carry away the Sofer 
to the holy town of Bels. From Guitelé’s heart 
one last anguished appeal flew towards heaven. 
The sacrifice is prepared! Isaac is laid upon the 
pile. Reuben is in the carriage. But no angel out 
of the blue flies down with an arm extended to 
arrest the blow of the whip upon the horse. 
The squeaking of the axle drowns the noise of 
voices and the benedictions for the journey. 
Reuben turns towards his mother one long pite- 
ous look. Adonai gave him, Adonai is taking him 
away ! 

Everything goes flying behind him, the valley 
square, the church and the loved synagogue, the 
Hungarians’ houses, the acacias in the yards, the 
geraniums and carnations, the huts of the Tziganes, 
the orchard with its raspberry trees, the field where 
the angel Gamaliel cut off his curls. 

Before him stretches the sunlit road leading to 
the great iron Crucifix; and amid the whirl of 
memories and regrets that each thing stirs in him 
as he passes it, a voice cries in his ear: 

“If you do but lift your eyes to the Cross in 
passing, this beautiful day will change in an in- 
stant to rain and thunder, the horse will turn right 


[183] 


THE StH AYD:.O PW POF MIS Ee Be ACA) Sac 


round upon the road and you will go back to the 
house.” 

Prudently he turns away his head. Beside him 
his grandfather murmurs: “Cursed be thou who 
madest a new religion!” And he, like a deep echo, 
repeats in a lower voice but with the same passion: 
“Cursed be thou who madest a new religion!” 

Behind them the Cross recedes farther into the 
distance with each turn of the wheel. The forest 
trees are leaning over their heads: the birds, the 
waterfalls, the streams, the boughs, and a thou- 
sand invisible angels with the whole earth and 
heavens sing together in a marvellous harmony: 


“The Lord is king, the earth may be glad thereof; 
Yea, the multitude of the isles may be glad thereof. 
Come, let us sing unto the Lord, 

Upon an instrument of ten strings and upon the lute. 
Thou art clothed with majesty and honour, 

Thou deckest Thyself with light as with a garment, 
Thou spreadest out the heavens like a curtain; 

The waters stand in the firmament; 

Thou makest the clouds Thy chariot, 

Thou comest flying upon the wings of the wind. 

Thou makest the winds Thy messengers, 
Thy ministers the flame of lightning. 
Thou bringest forth the water-springs, 
The beasts of the field drink of the rivers 
And the wild beasts quench their thirst. 
The trees of the Lord also are full of sap, 

[184] 


HAE MSIU PIE RINTAETAUTR AS PRIS YTT RS AWN GER 
Even the cedars of Lebanon which Thou hast planted, 
Wherein the birds make their nests; 

In the fir trees is a dwelling for the stork. 
The high hills are a refuge for the wild goat, 
And so are the stony rocks for the coneys.” 


Thus sing the angels, the earth, the heavens, and 
the waters. The child falls asleep, the old man 
prays. Hosannah to the ancient Israel bearing 
away his child! 


[185] 


CHFANPALPE TR EX 
L'HIE MP A RaW tials DU aes 


Nothing has changed at Bels since the day when 
Reb Amram came to order the Thora for Houn- 
falou. How indeed can there be any change in the 
town of the Rabbi and his miracles? It is like 
those ragged silken wrappings of the Thora, or 
those stained and dirty caftans that you see in the 
streets there, or those moth-eaten fur bonnets: pull 
out one thread from the old worn silk, rub off one 
spot from the old filthy caftan, tear out one tuft 
of hair from the maggoty fur, and the whole thing 
comes to pieces and falls into dust. 

In the muddy square, between the synagogue, 
the Zadik’s house and the bethamidrasch there is 
still the same endless coming and going of noisy, 
gesticulating folk; still the same whirlpool of ob- 
scure forces that wait only the opportunity to burst 
upon the world, to overturn the universe, to spread 
abroad their feverish spirit of criticism and revolt; 
but here they consume themselves miserably in this 
narrow space, finding solace and satisfaction only 
in the festivals of the synagogue, the miracles of 


[186] 


ELE SMAAK ELISA Obey BE LS 


the Zadik, and in furious colloquies with the ter- 
rible Jahveh. From all hearts and mouths there 
still goes up the frantic appeal to the impossible 
and the miraculous; the Rabbi, dignified as ever, 
still deals out wisdom and folly to them all; and 
the old Rabbizine, aged by ten years since the day 
when Reb Amram saw her under her diadem of 
gold, still lets fall from her open hands the fruits 
of Judea. 

The Sofer, wrapped in his great taliss, has once 
more taken his place at the window before his 
parchment and his inks of many colours. Beside 
him Reuben, with his drooping curls, bends over 
the little table, at which his father used to sit, 
copying mezuzzahs. On the counters at the end 
of the room the myrtle boughs and palm leaves 
repose peacefully under their covering of dust 
among the sepharims and the schalos-tchivos. 
Outside in the forest the snow-storm rages among 
the groaning fir trees and birch trees and shakes 
the iron Christs hanging at the cross-roads. 

How sweet it is, while the tempest howls over 
the vast plain, making the old roof creak and 
threatening to engulf the holy town of Bels, when 
everything out of doors is cold and cruel, when 
through the little icy squares of window-pane one 
sees nothing but a black crow flying past or a 
pilgrim hurrying along the wooden footpaths; how 
sweet it is in the Sofer’s house to listen to the old 

[187] 


LH ESS BA DO WOMEN CR Gases 


man expounding the Thora! He makes it all lu- 
minous with a mysterious light. The old Bible 
stories, so simple, so human, so tranquil, assume 
as he discourses a fantastic air. In the wandering 
dove, in the springing well, in the angel like a 
falling thunderbolt who seizes the arm outstretched 
above the head of Isaac, in the smallest word of 
the holy Thora are hidden the thousand secrets of 
the visible and the invisible world. Letters and 
words are no more letters and words, but signs and 
ciphers which yield to him who can read them the 
meaning of the universe. Behind the allegory of 
old stories related by Moses lie the mystery of 
Numbers, of Earth and Heaven, of Angels and 
Men, of Thrones, of celestial Convocations, of the 
thirty-two Voices of Wisdom, the fifty Gates of 
Understanding, the attributes of Divinity, the Ar- 
cana of the ten Sephiroth, an extravagant cosmog- 
ony of the universe. They are coiled and folded 
one within another, from the world of the nebu- 
losities, of the planets and the satellites, even to 
the infinite space where rests in its ineffable gran- 
deur the Abysmal, the Immeasurable. Outside, 
the snow is still whirling; the black crow, carried 
along in the blast as he flies, seems a creature of 
the Deluge straying from the sacred Ark of Noah. 

Like one who, hearing a strange language, lis- 
tens for some word of his own tongue in the stream 
of unknown words, the child among these obscu- 

[188] 


Ter BPA EAD SM Oren BE LES 


rities groped after some enlightening thought, 
some drop of limpid water, some pearl of bright- 
ness from which illumination might break forth. 
As in his delirium he attempted to seize the float- 
ing letters of the Podzuka, so with the whole 
strength of his tender brain he tried to grasp these 
insane interpretations. The little dark room be- 
sieged by the tempest became another Sinai. And 
he, Reuben, stood there, open-mouthed, represent- 
ing in his sole self the immense nation of the 
Hebrews. 

When evening came, with shoulders bowed under 
the lashing wind, the child carrying in his pocket 
the candle and the brick with a hole in it which 
served them as a candlestick, and the old man 
holding his hat well down upon his head that he 
might not be uncovered by the blast, they went off 
together to the bethamidrasch. 

In the enormous library furnished with Zohars, 
Bibles, and books of psalms, there is still the same 
smell of tobacco, of damp clothes and of paper 
rotting with age; still the same droning sound of 
reading and praying, pierced through now and 
then by the shrill voices of children. The candles 
sparkle in their wooden stands; the heat of the 
stove draws steam from the caftans wet with snow. 
The schamés pass up and down between the 
benches and tables offering their wax candles with 
importunate obstinacy; the long-haired beggars 

[189] 


TH ENS HAD OWA tO FAN aE ae OSs 


and the red-eyed idiots endeavour to snatch alms 
from generous strangers. Here an old man, strok- 
ing his long beard, the better to penetrate into the 
subtleties of the problem, is studying some ques- 
tion of casuistry, the product of a crazy brain. 
There, a boy leaning his elbow on the table and his 
cheek upon his hand, with his eyes uplifted to- 
wards the candles, loses himself in incommunicable 
dreams. 

Farther on is a group of older men, their ring- 
lets dangling together over some especially dif- 
ficult commentary. Another comes hurrying up 
to pronounce on the question. He were no true 
Jew did he not contribute in his turn a solution 
unlike any that has yet been put forward. Fifteen 
or twenty of them now, with a sound like the 
roaring of a forge, are buzzing over a word as our 
peasants at home might over a couple of oxen. 
The noise they make does not rouse a child who, 
falling asleep, drops his candle on to his book 
and sets it on fire. One sounding slap at once 
awakens the sleeper and extinguishes the flame, 
and the boy begins again his chanting of the 1m- 
mortal poems, snuffling his tears as he sings. 

Over there, in the darkest corner where the torn 
leaves of the holy books lie in a sacred dust heap 
which is burned every month, two or three young 
men are conversing with an air of mystery. No 
one guesses, as yet, what terrible thoughts are 


[190] 


eB NAR NE LS ROFAIB'E/LIS 


brooding under their black caftans, nor how heavy 
is the weight on their foreheads of the long curls 
which they shorten a little each day. They go to 
the synagogue, make their prayers and applaud 
the Rabbi, but their heart has already departed 
from Israel. They know that the rich universe 
contains other things than the Thora, the Talmud 
and the Zohar; they dream of escaping from Bels 
and of taking flight through the wide world. No 
one as yet has any suspicion of it. But one of 
these days, to-morrow perhaps, they will be seen 
no more. 

Driven by the wild restless demon in their 
hearts, they will make their way to London, to 
Berlin, to New York, to those towns whither so 
many of their brothers have gone before them, 
never to come back again; for many miracles have 
been seen at Bels, but never a Jew once gone from 
it returning. 

O sons of Israel, dreaming in your corner, talk- 
ing in low voices of flight and of new or of modern 
life, bending low over your Zohar that no one may 
suspect you—you Jews who, holding little candles 
in your hands, have learned the Law in this li- 
brary—you may leave it, may travel through the 
world, and become what you will in the cities of 
the West; yet for many years and many gener- 
ations you will remain unlike the rest of mankind. 
In you there will be always something alien, 


[1911 


TL HVE MES TH AND )0WIMNO FF Se Rios 


something apart which neither others nor your- 
selves will be able to explain. That disquietude, 
that sense of want, that nameless regret which you 
will feel so often, that neurasthenia and sickness 
of the mind, are the trace that you will bear of 
these long evenings passed amid the snow-storms 
in this cage of prayers from which you so ardently 
desire to escape. 

What was the heder of Hounfalou with its roof 
that the sheep nibbled at compared with this li- 
brary bright with prayers and with fire? 

And the old Melamed with his scanty beard and 
his terrible swift and ever-ready rod, what was he 
beside the Sofer who knew the mysterious letters 
which compose the sacred name of Adonai: those 
letters which have power to cause the Eternal to 
appear before him who pronounces them? What 
was that poor village full of dogs and pigs and 
cruel Christian children in comparison with this 
magnificent Bels where none but caftaned Jews 
were to be seen? 

And when for the first time, in the synagogue 
thronged with hundreds of pilgrims, Reuben be- 
held the tables for the great feast of the Zadik, 
and the Zadik himself with his red eye and his 
blue eye, arriving, dressed in white, preceded by 
his secretaries, his eighteen sons and his grand- 
sons; when he beheld the servers setting the 
steaming fragrant dishes on the tables, and the 


[192] 


DEEE MIATRAVIE IS MOI BBE LAS 


miracle-working Rabbi touching his plate and 
immediately pushing it away with his lordly and 
weary air, and the faithful quarrelling for the 
scraps; When he saw the great flagons of wine 
brought in, and heard the criers proclaiming that 
each flagon came from the fabulous countries of 
France or Spain or Italy; when he himself had 
wetted his lips in his grandfather’s cup and had 
drunk a few drops of a Burgundy sent by Gold- 
scheider, from Macon, and when above his reeling 
head there floated the melodious voices of the 
singers from little Russia: then Reuben knew that 
he had arrived—that he had reached Jerusa- 
lem. 

When the wax candle that had lighted up their 
book had almost burnt out in its socket in the 
brick, the old man and the child tore themselves 
away from their reading, and carrying their lan- 
tern, returned through the darkness along the 
planks laid across the square between the walls of 
snow. Often, however, when the storm was rag- 
ing too violently they remained in the bethami- 
drasch and slept upon a bench. 

But for a child whom the Angel of Death has 
already brushed with its wing it is not at all 
healthy spending long days bent over the little 
table; nor is it healthy standing for hours in the 
bitter draughts in the great synagogue; nor sit- 
ting up late at night in the bethamidrasch; nor 

[193] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


walking home in the cold and darkness, nor get- 
ting up in the freezing dawn. 

Old man, do you not see that you are complet- 
ing the ruin of the child’s health? Do you not 
see that this life is killing him? See how hollow 
his cheeks are growing, how his nose is getting 
thin and his ears transparent. Feel under his caf- 
tan his little bones coming through his skin. Look 
at his great eyes too black and too brilliant, his 
too pale lips, and that red flush on his cheek- 
bones that is not the flush of health. 

Old man, he has been coughing. Did you not 
hear? 


[194 


Cory A Pelle hash 
POURIM 


Two thousand two hundred and thirty-three 
years ago, on the twenty-fifth day of the icy month 
of Kislev, Judah, called Maccabæus, son of the 
High Priest Matathias, of the family of the Asmo- 
nians, having defeated at Bethoron in Gadara in 
the fields of Idumza among the mountains of 
Betzura, of Jamnia and of Azoth, the generals of 
Antiochus Epiphanes, entered Jerusalem to the 
sound of trumpets, harps and cymbals, hymns and 
canticles; and lighted again the lamp of the sanc- 
tuary in the polluted Temple. 

To commemorate this exploit all the little Jews 
of Bels, with their tzitziss hanging down their 
backs and their caftans tucked up above their 
boots or their down-at-the-heel shoes, pass through 
the village, carrying bows and arrows, like Judah’s 
band of warriors. They march to the meadow 
and there wage battle, shooting into the air against 
an invisible Antiochus the arrows from their 
birchen bows. 

From behind the shut windows Reuben watches 

[195] 


TETE MS HA DiOlWr OCP er RCTRIORSES 


them going past. He has neither the courage nor 
the strength to follow them. “Go and play with 
them,” says the old Sofer. But he remains at his 
book, leaning over the white wooden table. 

Nothing amuses him any more. In all his be- 
haviour is a gravity that does not suit his age. 
And now in sad truth one might aptly say of him 
what was said by the matrons of Hounfalou: 
“The child is like a waxen doll.” 

And in the month of Adar, when, for the sal- 
vation of the world the people of Israel, thanks to 
Mordecai and his niece Esther, escaped the 
general massacre devised by Haman, what 
Jewish child does not rejoice in the feast of 
Pourim? 

Then the housewives knead the cake mixed with 
poppy-seeds and honey which goes by the name 
of Haman’s Pouch; and in the dough they draw 
artistically the Tables of the Law, the two Lions 
of Judah, the fantastic animals of Noah’s Ark, 
or the seven-branched candlestick. Then the chil- 
dren, wearing masks, go carrying these cakes from 
house to house and singing the old song: 


“Good people, here is a good angel 
With squinting eyes 

And a cotton beard, 

And his wife is very sick. 

Give him a kreutzer if you please, 
And throw him out at the door.” 


[196] 


POURIM 


And in the synagogue, while the Hazen is intoning 
the Chronicle of Esther, they all shake rattles, or 
bringing out sticks and cudgels they had hidden 
under their caftans, they rain heavy blows on the 
desks and benches each time that the accursed 
name of the minister of Ahasuerus occurs in the 
legend. 

But Reuben has not put on any mask nor any 
beard on his chin; he has not carried round to 
the Sofer’s friends the cake that old Rachel has 
made; he does not shake a rattle, and the infer- 
nal noise of the sticks and cudgels rings painfully 
through his tired head. 

He follows his grandfather, however, to the ban- 
quet given this evening by the Zadik to his flock. 

This banquet of Pourim has not the grandiose 
character of the banquets of Kippour and of 
Rosch Haschanah. The festival falls in mid- 
winter when Galicia 1s covered with snow, and the 
season is not propitious for great pilgrimages. 
Round the table of the Rabbi there is hardly any 
one besides the village folk and his usual little 
court, his children, his secretaries, and those per- 
sons distinguished for piety and learning who fill 
some sacred office in the synagogue: these are 
called the Klé Kodesch, the “Instruments of Holi- 
ness,” consisting of the junior Rabbi, the Precentor 
of the Community, the venerable Hazen, the Sac- 
rificer, the chief Melamed, and of course the great 


[197] 


HE NS HA D OVW OCR Gal (Hie a Con Ors 


Sofer of Bels. But precisely on account of the 
small number of pilgrims, the pious circle on this 
day has an air of greater intimacy; and there is 
more wild carousal and drunkenness in the syna- 
gogue than at the time of Kippour and Rosch 
Haschanah: for Mordecai himself, when he an- 
nounced the fall of Haman among the Jews of the 
Empire of Ahasuerus, exhorted them to celebrate 
these days with feasting and dancing. And so 
on this joyful night every good Jew should be so 
drunk that he cannot distinguish “Cursed be 
Haman” from “Blessed be Mordecai.” 

The Sofer, in conformity with this devout cus- 
tom, filled his glass from every jug which passed 
within reach. “Come, my child, we must drink,” 
he said to Reuben sitting at his side, as he might 
have said: “You must say your prayer.’ The 
pious child drank. And, excited by the tumult 
of the banquet and the first glasses of wine, he 
was already beginning to turn giddy when there 
sprang upon the table among the plates and glasses 
a strange company of people. They were dressed 
in many-coloured clothes of silk and velvet whose 
shabby gaudiness made a vivid contrast among the 
black caftans; on their feet they wore white slip- 
pers decorated with pompons, and they danced 
about gaily upon the crowded table, or, pulling 
out coloured handkerchiefs from their belts, they 
threw them over their hands and with the action 


[198] 


POURIM 


of their fingers represented the persons in old sto- 
ries. 

They were Jewish dancers from Palestine, or 
collectors rather, who go from village to village all 
through the world of Jewry from the Ghettos of 
Russia to San Francisco, taking money for the 
rebuilding of the Temple and the maintenance of 
The Weepers who lament at Jerusalem against the 
Western Wall. During the festival of Esther they 
become dancers and amuse the people by cutting 
capers which suggest to their imaginations the 
dances of the delivered Jews before the King 
Ahasuerus. 

For a moment this striking interlude so forcibly 
arrested the attention of the guests that they all 
forgot to drink. But the Rabbi’s servants were 
setting on the tables a wine of Bessarabia contain- 
ing an enormous percentage of alcohol. This 
thick, dark beverage completed the intoxication of 
those who had still been able to hold out. The 
Sacrificer beat time upon the table as though it 
were the noise he was making that caused the 
dancers of Palestine to jump about on the boards. 
The venerable Hazen with his black-nailed hand 
and his snuffy handkerchief mimicked, though un- 
skilfully, the figure of Queen Esther. The Me- 
lamed, staggering between the tables, was trying 
to pull out from the lining of his caftan some little 
packets of tobacco and bean-flour and sell them to 


[199] 


L'HSE XS'HTA:D OW MBOFFEMEHTE NS GIRIOES7S 


the company, but his faltering hands could not 
find the mouth of the rent and his long arms lost 
their way between his tzitziss and his shirt. 

Reb Eljé still preserved his dignity, but his ha- 
bitual feast-day smile was rather broader, his face 
rather crimsoned, and his eyes swam in gentle 
tears and in dreams. The Zadik alone, in the 
midst of his young children lying asleep to right 
and left of him like a flock of lambs, still seeming 
aloof from all that went on around him yet ob- 
servant of everything, retained his perfect coolness, 
watching the crowd with his clear blue eye. 

Reuben, quite off his head, was going from one 
table to another drinking from all the glasses held 
out to him as he passed, by the guests, who were 
amused to see him in that state—he, such a good 
child! 

Then on a sudden, icy cold was around him: si- 
lence, and deep night. He had left the stifling, 
brightly-lit hall, he was walking in the darkness 
on the narrow footway laid down across the square 
and feeling his way with his hands along the bank 
of snow which formed a rampart on each side. 
Suddenly and miraculously the wall seemed to 
melt under his fingers and the footpath gave way 
under his feet: he was stepping on deep, newly 
fallen snow. Sweet and mysterious noises rang in 
his ear; in the midst of a blinding light the dancers 
from Palestine sprang before his dazzled eyes, then 


[200] 


POURIM 


all things were covered beneath the trembling 
mantle of irresistible sleep. . .. 

Meanwhile in the synagogue the banquet was 
almost done. Preceded by his servers who carried 
his youngest children fast asleep in their arms 
(the others were snoring under the table), the 
Zadik had retired. A few of the citizens of Bels 
were staggering towards their homes, but the 
greater number remained to sleep in the house of 
the Lord, and among these were the Instruments of 
Holiness, all thoroughly intoxicated, either because 
the pious wish to honour the Queen Esther had 
induced them to drink immoderately, or else be- 
cause their habitual austerities and fasting caused 
them to succumb more easily to the influence of 
wine. 

Beside the cupboard of the Thoras, a patriarch, 
glass in hand, was upholding the honour of Po- 
land against ten or more of those Jews who are 
called “executioners of Christ” on account of their 
bushy beards, their flattened noses, and prominent 
cheek-bones and who can be recognized as Rus- 
sians by the cap of black silk which they wear in- 
stead of the round hat or the fur bonnet. This old 
man, the pride of Bels for his faculty of carrying 
his wine, was the Rofé (apothecary) of the village. 
How, and by what chance, after being uprooted by 
conscription from a Ghetto in Transylvania, had 
he been cast adrift in Bels with a vaguely worded 

[201] 


THE US EAD OINW MO FT ENMCIR ONE 


hospital diploma in his pocket beside his checked 
handkerchief and his ablution bottle? He him- 
self, no doubt, had forgotten, for he was now at 
least eighty years old. His art was very simple. 
To patients in the prime of life he said: “It’s 
nothing; drink some lime-flower tea, and put on 
leeches.” For old people he advised the tebilim, 
the psalms that are recited at the bedside of the 
dying. 

When the last jug was empty he went off, leav- 
ing the Russians dead drunk on the steps of the 
sacred cupboard. Never within the memory of 
any Jew in Bels had he been known to spend the 
night in the synagogue. Some shadowy notion of 
living at ease, something like an instinct for com- 
fort always drew him back to his bed, or rather 
to his pallet, although he only turned it over twice 
or thrice in the year. And this was indeed provi- 
dential for the unfortunate Reuben who, lost in the 
little square as if in the boundless Steppes, had 
sunk down in the snow and was still seeing in his 
dreams the dancers from Palestine leaping as high 
as the stars. 

With his lantern in one hand while with the 
other he felt his way through the darkness with 
his long stick, the Rofé was going towards his 
house, when from the highest heavens the kindly 
Esther directed a beam of candle-light upon the 
little sleeping form. The Rofé followed the ray, 

[202] 


POURIM 


and shaking the child by the shoulders and reviv- 
ing him with warm words flowing in abundance 
from a heart full of wine, he dragged him to the 
Sofer’s house, where the old Jewess who acted as 
housekeeper since his wife’s death was dozing 
in the kitchen while awaiting his return. 

When she saw the poor child half dead with 
drunkenness and cold she gave vent to the help- 
less screams of women easily moved by emotion 
and especially by the pleasure of going into a 
rage. But the Rofé, recovering at the same mo- 
ment his clearness of mind and his professional 
art, said to her: “It’s nothing. Rub with vine- 
gar, give lime-flower tea, and apply leeches.” 


He stayed in bed for a whole month, not suf- 
fering any pain, not complaining at all, but al- 
ways burning hot or freezing cold. Rachel rubbed 
him, put on leeches, and made him drink lime- 
flower tea as the Rofé had ordered. The Sofer re- 
doubled his prayers and fasts, for Eliezer has 
said: “Have you headache? Apply yourself to 
the study of the Law; it is a crown for the head. 
Have you pain in the chest? Apply yourself to 
the study of the Law; it is a jewel for the throat. 
Have you pain in the whole body? Apply your- 
self to the study of the Law; it is refreshment to 
the bones.” But since the Master of the world, 
Who sends death to His Jews only in punishment 

[203] 


THES FL AND ONE OF ENTREE CIRE 


for their sins, is always careful to warn them by 
terrible suffering, and the child was still without 
pain, Reb Eljé Lebowitz was not really anxious. 

With the first days of spring, in which the cold 
of winter in Poland suddenly changes to warmth, 
Reuben seemed to come to life again. His cough 
was not so incessant, his hands and his forehead 
not so hot. “He is cured,’ said Rachel; and Reb 
Eljé fasted only three times in the week. He ap- 
peared once more in the synagogue and the 
bethamidrasch. Adonai, it was evident, looked 
with less wrath upon the child. And He would 
no doubt have pardoned him completely if on the 
day of Kippour Reb Eljé Lebowitz had not com- 
mitted the most serious offence that a horn-blower 
can commit against the Eternal. 


[204] 


CHA ET ERI 
THEtSORER S)CGCRIME 


In the synagogue littered with straw and bril- 
liant with the beautiful Candles of the Soul, the 
storm of Israel’s confession had been raging for 
twenty-four hours. Once more these ancient Peo- 
ple who invented the misery of sin, the ever- 
wrathful God, and redemption by penitence and 
fasting, were abandoning themselves to their old 
passion for humiliation, repentance and mourning. 
Since the night before, the stern prayer, Al Eth, 
accompanied by the dull sound of fists beating on 
the caftans, had resounded ten times under the 
roof. And now at nightfall there rang out the 
wailing harmonies of the prayer Neila. 

This prayer is not recited by the Hazen, the 
officiating minister who leads the choir in the 
prayers, but by the person reputed to be the most 
pious in the Community. At Bels, for many years 
it had been the Sofer who recited it. Gradually, 
as the verses of the sublime prayer succeeded one 
another, his voice, at first drowned by the deep 
basses of the Jews accompanying him in an under- 


[205] 


THEWS WADIO W SOIR it EE Roe 


tone, regained its youthful vigour, descended into 
the gulf of lamentation, and then rose all at once 
through the seven regions of the heavens. 

He who has never listened through the twilight 
hours in a synagogue of Eastern Europe to the 
singing of this prayer Neila by the sobbing voice 
of one of these old cantors of Israel; he who has 
not heard these artists in groans and tears, these 
nightingales of grief—that man may pass long 
nights and days poring over the books of Israel, 
but he will not have heard the true accents of 
Judea, the voice of Jeremiah, of Job and of Isaiah 
reverberating through century after century and 
piercing to his heart. 

Never had a more fervent prayer poured forth 
from the lips of the great Sofer of Bels; never 
had his faithful heart been closer to God. But 
death is close to life and sin is near to virtue. 
Job, from the height of his grandeur, is thrown 
down upon the dunghill; Moses from the moun- 
tain-top looks upon Canaan which he will not 
reach. 

The prayer being ended, Reb Eljé Lebowitz 
with a sweep of his arm lifted the silver-mounted 
horn. But in this awful moment when no egoistic 
cares, no personal thoughts should remain in the 
heart of him who sounds the schofer, in this hour 
of crisis when the blast of the sacred horn should 
bring to the feet of the Lord all the misery of 

[206] 


THE SOFER’S CRIME 


Israel and the sorrows of every place in the world 
in which a Jew is expiating his sin by sickness, 
or by mourning or by pain; in that moment he 
thought neither of the Jews of Bels nor those of 
Poland, nor of the Communities of Germany or of 
Russia, nor of those more distant in America and 
Asia, nor of those the most beloved among all who 
remain in the land of their forefathers near the 
fallen Temple: he thought only of his child. 
“Master of the world!” he exclaimed in his heart, 
“in this sublime hour of pardon I would fain send 
up to Thee an appeal so mighty that all past 
transgressions known or unknown for which my 
child now suffers may be wiped out of Thy Book; 
and Thou shalt permit him to live yet many days 
and years the life that is so sweet beneath Thy 
yoke, O Eternal!” A long blast filled all the syna- 
gogue. The old man was straining from his 
chest all the breath that remained to him, in or- 
der to sustain to the last possible moment this 
final, this supreme appeal to the divine mercy. 
The veins of his neck swelled, his eyes became in- 
jected with blood. The breath expired in his 
throat. He supported himself against the rail of 
the Almémor lest he should fall. 

All round about him shouts of deliverance rose 
from the raving multitude. The eternal madness 
of Israel filled the synagogue with a roar of frenzy. 
And the joy of all these people who for twenty- 

[207] 


THE SSHIADOW TO Fy oh ESO RD S'S 


four hours had not ceased howling, praying and 
groaning was increased by the fact that out-of- 
doors the moon was now shining and they might 
therefore offer to the Eternal the homage of yet 
more frantic cries. 

In the old times, when the moon, as on this 
evening, was shining in her second quarter, sac- 
rifice was made in the Temple of two young 
bulls, a ram, and seven lambs of the first year 
and without blemish. To-day the Temple is in 
ruins; prayers are the only offering. The im- 
mense crowd, clothed in white and carrying what 
remained of the great Candles of the Soul, had 
left the synagogue, and standing in the square, 
sent up towards the shining orb those hymns of 
‘love which in all ages the sons of Shem, whether 
Hebrew or Pheenician, nomads of the desert or 
of the restless sea, have addressed to the cold 
Goddess, the companion and protectress of their 
endless journeyings. 

“O Moon!” they say. “In the beginning of 
time thou didst shine by day as in the night, equal 
in beauty with the Sun. But thou didst dream of 
becoming the only one and the greatest of the 
lights. God was wrath and said: ‘He who is not 
content with what is high but casts covetous looks 
at that which is yet higher, even he shall return 
to that which is common. Let thy height be made 
low, let thy greatness diminish, let thy light 

[208] 


DHEMSORERASCCRIIME 


henceforth be pale and feeble.’ He spoke, and 
it was done. ‘Oh, pardon!’ wept the Moon, 
‘Too late, replied the Eternal. ‘The envious 
may not obtain pardon save by good deeds.’ 
Since that time, O fallen Star, thou wanderest in 
the darkened sky to comfort the unfortunate, to 
lead the traveller, to guide the lost; a ray of hope 
in the prisons and in the soul of the despairing. 
But the time, the time will come when the Eter- 
nal, touched by our prayers, will grant to thee, 
as to us, His pardon, O kindly Moon! Then wilt 
thou reign as of old, over the days.” 

The ancient litany floated out into the divine 
night. In the unclouded sky the immortal exile 
continued on her way and from the cold im- 
measurable heights shed down upon her worship- 
pers scattered far below her like a white flock of 
sheep beneath a precipice her most tender bright- 
ness. 

O Adonai, how heavy is Thine arm upon the 
servants whom Thou lovest! How swift is Thy 
judgment! 

With his candle trembling in his hand, his face 
whiter than his shirt, his eyes turned up to 
heaven and his lips moving in prayer while he 
staggered as though drunken, Reb Eljé Lebowitz 
was exhausting himself in vain efforts to join in 
the discordant and passionate singing. No sound 
issued from his injured throat: it was as if God 

[209] 


T HE CS'H'A:D 0 WAMO'FAETIEL Bs oie 


refused to hear the voice of His old servant. 

The last words of the Noemenie had hardly 
echoed through the square when the famished pil- 
grims rushed into the synagogue to gain their 
place at the Zadik’s banquet, while the Jews of 
Bels went homewards to celebrate in their own 
families the end of the Terrible Days. 

Reb Eljé, leaning upon Reuben, reached his 
house with difficulty. Old Rachel had set the 
lighted candles on the table and arranged the 
fish and the beans and the fine whipped cake which 
is eaten on the evening of the Pardon, and called 
on that account the Cake of Pity. 

“What is the matter, then, Rabbi Soferr” she 
cried at sight of the old man. “How pale and 
how worn out you look!” 

“Something broke inside me while I was sound- 
ing the schofer,” he said in a faint voice. 

In a moment the gay candles on the table were 
darkened and the Cake of Pity was as though it 
were covered with ashes. 

“Run and fetch Herschel the Rofé!” cried the 
old woman to Reuben. 

Reuben ran to his house, but found there only 
the Candle of the Soul which is burnt also in the 
houses during the twenty-four hours of Kippour, 
and was now giving out its dying light in the dark- 
ness. The Rofé was a widower and his eight 
children were dispersed through the wide world. 

[210] 


THE SOFER’S CRIME 


Consequently, avoiding his empty home, he was 
taking part with the strangers in the great ban- 
quet of the Zadik. 

In the synagogue the feast was already in full 
swing. Where and how should he find the Rofé 
among the multitudes at the tables? How should 
he make his name heard through the din of con- 
versation, the clatter of plates and the singing? 
The child went from table to table, calling to the 
echoes for the whereabouts of Herschel the Rofé. 

“Where do you expect him to ber” said some 
one. “He’s among the pitchers, of course.” And, 
in fact, he discovered him by the Almémor, where 
the Zadik’s servants were bringing in the amphora 
of wine, and close to the secretary in a kolback 
who was beginning to proclaim to the crowd the 
names of the vineyards and of the donors. 

“Come, quick, Herschel the Rofé. My grand- 
father is very ill!” 

If that son of his who is now a ladies’ tailor in 
New York had suddenly, on this night of Kippour, 
started up before him in the middle of the syna- 
gogue with his shaven face and his ringlets cut off, 
the Rofé would not have been more unpleasantly 
startled. He passed his hand several times over 
his enormous nose, which from abuse of wine and 
tobacco had acquired the colour of the leeches 
which he applied to his patients, gave a lingering 
look at the pitchers, and walked out of the syna- 

[211] 


DH EsStH ADO Wi OP DH ESO RIONSTS 


gogue leaning on his staff like a Homer or an 
Æsculapius. 

When he saw the Sofer lying unconscious: 

“A bad business,” he said, feeling his pulse. 
“The best thing is to say tehelim.” 

Having thus spoken, he took up his staff and 
without more delay returned to the synagogue 
and the pitchers. 

It isn’t a cobbler, it isn’t a tailor or any com- 
mon workman who must say tehelim when a pi- 
ous Sofer is ill. 

“Run and tell the Klé Kodesch!” said old 
Rachel to Reuben, who was in consternation at 
the oracle fallen from the lips of the Rofé. 

The child rushed out into the street. 

First he went and knocked at the Sacrificer’s 
door. An exquisite smell of cooking came from 
the house. The housewives who had brought 
their fowls to be killed by him on the night be- 
fore had paid him by leaving the necks and the 
livers; and his wife was famous ten leagues 
round for her manner of cooking necks with 
livers. 

On the table was a dish piled up with all the 
necks minced in her incomparable hash. 

“Ah!” said she, seeing the child come in, “thou 
shalt take a neck to thy grandfather.” 

“He won't eat any to-night,’ he answered 
through his tears. “Something broke inside him 


[212] 


DHBESIO ME Riese GR ME 


while he was sounding the schofer. I have come 
to fetch you, Reb Mosché, to recite tehilim.” 

Then leaving the savoury-smelling parlour he 
hurried to the Hazen. 

The venerable Hazen, who during the whole 
festival had led the Jewish choir in prayer, and 
who for twenty-four hours had not ceased sob- 
bing, shouting and wailing, was worn out, broken 
with fatigue, dead-beat. Seated at the well- 
spread table, but too much exhausted to eat, he 
had unbuttoned his caftan and shirt, and on his 
hairy chest where the red fleece mingled with his 
beard his wife was dabbing sun-flower oil and 
rubbing it gently to soothe his inflamed lungs. 
One of his daughters, meanwhile, held to his pale 
lips some hot chicken-broth. 

Scarcely had the child opened his mouth when 
the Hazen’s wife cried sharply: 

“He can’t go! See what a state he’s in! They 
ought to be saying tehilim for him!” 

But the Hazen, in a hoarse voice that sounded 
hardly human, said: 

“Not say tehilim when Reb Eljé is ill! And 
on the evening of Kippour! ... I’m going! I’m 
going! Give me my scarf.” 

Reuben was gone already to find the Rabbi, not 
the Rabbi of the miracles who must not be dis- 
turbed at the banquet, but the ritual Rabbi, the 
junior Rabbi of Bels. A few of his friends in 

[213] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


the neighbourhood who had come to spend Kip- 
pour were with him; they were discussing ve- 
hemently the question whether a son who in a 
state of intoxication had robbed or beaten his 
paralytic father could be pronounced brutal, 
drunken and debauched by the judge, since, ac- 
cording to the terms of the Law, the father must 
go in person to make complaint before the magis- 
trate—which under the circumstances he could 
not do, being paralysed. 

In the heat of the dispute no one observed the 
entrance of the child, and he, startled, stood still 
in the doorway, not daring tc interrupt the saintly 
discussion. But at last, gathering courage: “My 
grandfather is ill!” he cried loudly. “Come and 
say tehilim, Reb Jessel.” 

These words fell into the midst of the debate 
like the clod of earth which the Hungarian shep- 
herd throws into the pot as a sign to the other 
guardians of the flock that the meal is finished, 
and that what remains is the dogs’ share. 

Every one rose from the table, and the pilpoul 
was continued in the street. 

Meanwhile, Reuben hurried on to call the ten- 
ant of the Heder, the senior Melamed. He found 
him with his sleeves tucked up to the elbows, sit- 
ting before an enormous mortar filled with snuff 
and bean-flour which he was making up into little 


[214] 


HE SiO FERS CRIM E 


packets he would sell by and by to the guests of 
the Zadik. 

“You come just at the right moment,” said he, 
holding open the large rent in his caftan which 
served as a pocket. And he made Reuben drop 
into this improvised pouch the two or three hun- 
dred packets that he had already prepared. 

When the caftan was bulging with the precious 
goods they went off to Reb Eljé’s. 

The house was by this time full of people chant- 
ing tehilim. The Instruments of Holiness, Hohet, 
Hazen and Rabbin were not without posterity: 
their children had come with them, and their 
guests also, all of them from the bottom of their 
hearts giving thanks to Adonai for the exceptional 
favours which He granted them this evening; for 
after having gratified them with a brilliant moon 
by which to celebrate the office of Noemenie, He 
was giving them now on this holy night, when 
deeds of piety ought to be most numerous, an oc- 
casion to perform one of the three great duties 
imposed upon Israel—visiting the sick, attending 
the dead, and assisting the daughters of Sion to 
find husbands. 

Many poor artisans likewise assembled, keeping 
modestly in the background and muttering 
psalms. 

At the sight of all these pious Jews, swaying to 

[215] 


T HOE SS'/HEASD O0 MOUSE EM CRIUISES 


and fro in the moonlight, in the movement of 
prayer a sudden thought came to Reuben whose 
memory was stored with miraculous histories from 
the Mischna and the Zohar; he recollected, too, 
his little companions passing one by one before 
his bed, each offering to the Eternal one minute of 
his existence in order to prolong his own. “Ah!” 
said Reuben rapturously to himself, “if every one 
of these people crowding into the room and the 
Street would offer to the Holy of Holies only a 
few hours of his life, my grandfather would live 
still a long, long time!” 

Gliding through the crowd, now absorbed in the 
joy of weeping, he went and took from the cup- 
board where Reb Eljé kept his store of parchment 
one spotless sheet; he dipped the quill pen in the 
ink, and like one soliciting subscriptions, gathering 
here and there copper or silver coins, he went to 
all the Jews present in turn, asking for the gift 
of one moment of life for his grandfather. 

Which of them, on that evening of Kippour, 
‘would not have gladly signed? Who would re- 
fuse to the great Sofer of Bels one hour of his 
existence’ Who would not give to Reb Eljé a 
mortgage on his destiny? What advance, what 
loan could be safer, what investment more profit- 
abler 

On the paper the child held out to them all in- 
scribed their names and the amount of their sac- 


[216] 


THE SOFER’S CRIME 


rifice, as joyfully as though they were drawing a 
cheque on eternal life. And when, from the Klé 
Kodesch down to the humblest artisan, there was 
none who had not opened an account on his span 
of life in favour of the great Sofer of Bels, Reuben 
took the parchment all black with the tokens of 
love and faith, and wrote his own name last of 
all. 

It is usually on the tomb of some illustrious 
doctor or of some saintly Rabbi—one of those 
small simple Jewish tombs consisting of a mound 
on which is set a little wooden house like a dog 
kennel—that these requests are thrown; these 
supplications, these mad petitions which ever- 
trustful Israel addresses through all ages to the 
Lord. But it seemed to Reuben that not even on 
the tomb of the most illustrious doctor or of the 
most saintly of Rabbis would his request be near 
enough to the Lord; and with his precious parch- 
ment clasped against his heart once more he 
rushed into the street. 

The Zadik’s banquet was finished. Bels, which 
for twenty-four hours had looked like a town de- 
serted, now in the bright moonlight was filled with 
an extraordinary agitation as though the whole 
of the inhabitants were on the move. Bands of 
pilgrims were returning to their carts to lie down 
and sleep there. Others, ready to depart, were 
harnessing their horses, tightening cords and 


[217] 


THB STE AMIO MM O.F SDA Re G ROSE 


straps by the light of lanterns, and engaging in 
disputes in which the loving-kindness of the Day 
of Kippour was entirely forgotten, with the Kach- 
lavniks who were demanding outrageous pay- 
ments. In the courtyards women and children 
were setting up poles for the booths of the Feast 
of Tabernacles, as the commandment for this night 
requires; the whole town rang with the sound of 
their hammers. And there in heaven was the 
same moon which of old time illuminated the 
desert when the tents were pitched in a square 
around the sanctuary with the Levites, the Priests, 
and Aaron and Moses next the Ark, and the men 
of war on the four sides. That same moon was 
shining to-night upon the pilgrims setting forth 
along unsure roads towards the distant villages, 
shining on the Jews as they planted their stakes 
in the courtyards, and lighting the great square 
where the faithful who had not yet obtained au- 
dience of the Zadik were waiting impatiently be- 
fore the worn brick steps for the moment when 
they too might go in to ask of him a miracle. 
Many of the pilgrims who were to start at 
dawn, either by road or by train, remained in the 
synagogue giving themselves up to the delight of 
feasting. The heat and the smoke of their pipes 
made a thick fog overhead, obscuring the light of 
the Candles of the Soul which were burning low 
in the far corners of the building. All eyes were 


[218] 


PATES ORERESE CRIME 


heavy with drunkenness; the snoring of the 
sleepers stretched out under the tables accom- 
panied the songs. The floor, as far as the stair 
to the cupboard of the Thoras, was covered with 
prostrate forms. 

Reuben passed through this agitation and noise 
as if in a dream. Jumping from table to table 
and striding over the drunken men, he reached 
the holy cupboard, mounted the steps, drew aside 
the velvet curtain embroidered with the two Lions 
of Judah, turned the key in the lock, and as if 
into a harbour of refuge, a port of salvation, 
among that silent assembly of the Thoras he threw 
the parchment charged with the sacrifice of life 
which the Jews of Bels had offered to the Lord. 


Some days afterwards the last of the pilgrims 
who had remained at Bels for the Feast of Taber- 
nacles were saying, as they returned to their dis- 
tant villages: “We saw a great miracle there! 
On the evening of Yom Kippour the Sofer Reb 
Eljé burst all the veins in his body while sound- 
ing the sacred trumpet. We saw him lying life- 
less on his bed, but it was not the Lord’s will that 
Reb Eljé Lebowitz should die for blowing the 
ram’s horn, and when we set out again he was 
saying the prayer with us in the synagogue.” 

Ah, if those travellers, those seekers after 
miracle, those familiars of the unseen, those in- 


[219] 


TiHtE GS HEA D:0 W MOREL EE CRO SiS 


defatigable readers of the Mischna and the Zo- 
har, had known the truth, how much more mar- 
vellous a story they might have told on their 
return! 

Since the great evening of Kippour, when he 
ran from house to house in the night, the cough, 
the violent fever and all the misery that the Angel 
of Death carries on his wings had fallen upon 
Reuben with redoubled fury. As though there 
were some invisible bond that united the existence 
of the old man and the child, so that the same 
mysterious scales that lifted the one into the light 
plunged the other down into darkness, step by 
step as Reb Eljé recovered his lost vigour, Reuben 
day by day lost hold on the little that was left 
to him of life. Glass is not so transparent, the 
flame of the candle is less frail. But, blinded 
doubtless by the Divine Will, Reb Eljé appeared 
to see nothing. In thankfulness to Adonai for sav- 
ing his son he had begun a splendid Thora des- 
tined for the sacred shrine of Bels. A Sofer 
wrapped in his taliss, with his tephilim and his 
pen in his hand—can he give ear to so profane a 
sound as the coughing of a child? 

The birches cast their leaves, the fir trees bent 
under the snow; the wind of winter in its stormy 
course brought round the festivals which the Lord 
has sown in the dark season like flowers upon the 
ice, and that one revered among all others, when 


[220] 


THE SOFER S CRIME 
the Eternal dictated to Moses the Tables of the 
Law. 

On that day, says the Mischna, all Nature be- 
came dumb; no bird sang in the branches, no 
leaf stirred on the still trees. In all the listening 
world not one beast uttered a cry. The sea was 
without motion, the voice of man was unheard, 
the Angels themselves kept silence, the Seraphim 
ceased their hymn to the Thrice Holy. 

Bels and its meadows were submerged beneath a 
rain like a deluge and almost like a sacrilege on 
that solemn day. In the house of the Sofer, 
among the palm leaves, the myrtles and the sera- 
phim, the tick-tick of an old clock ordered all 
things duly. Reb Eljé was reading the Zohar; 
Rachel was bustling in the kitchen; Reuben, more 
wasted by fever than on the day when Hertz Wolf 
hurried to sell him to the Schabés goy, shivered 
under the red eiderdown that could not warm 
him any more. 

Then, all at once, as in olden times, all the 
noises grew still. The rain ceased to beat on the 
windows, the clock to measure the silence, the 
Sofer was no longer reading the Zohar nor old 
Rachel hurrying over her household affairs; and 
memories sounded no more in the soul of the child 
with that sweet mysterious murmur, so deep 
down, so continuous that one must needs bend 
low over the heart to hear it. That music, which 

[221] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


is diverse for every man on earth, for him was 
composed of the songs that Reb Amram and 
Hertz Wolf sang on a Saturday, returning from 
the synagogue, the adieu to the Princess, the 
hissing of the lit taper extinguished in the wine, 
the sweet names that his mother called him in 
the evenings as she laid him in his bed, the thun- 
der of the water-falls that roared so loud in the 
morning when he was on his way to the Heder; all 
these mingled with the scent of dried roses and 
carnations in the box of perfumes. 

That music was the last to cease. Even Reu- 
ben’s breath broke the silence no longer. Like 
the tuft of sheep’s wool which a woman picks out 
of the milk, like a bird fleeing from the net of 
the fowler—oh, how lightly a soul departs from 
the little body of a child!—so, life went from 
him. 


And now Reuben is lying in the little cemetery 
of Bels. Pieces of broken crockery cover his 
great Oriental eyes that on a day of madness were 
uplifted to the Cross; his head, that was bent too 
often over the sacred Books, rests softly on a 
little sack filled with earth from Palestine; his 
fingers, stopped for ever in their apprenticeship 
to the writer’s art, now hold, instead of goose- 
quills, the little bits of match-wood which will 
serve him as crutches as he drags himself under- 


[222] 


TEMS OF RRISVORIME 


ground towards Jerusalem where the dead will rise 
again at the coming of the Messiah. 

When will he see Jerusalem? For how many 
ages must he wait in that rain-sodden meadowr 
When will his eyes re-open? When will his ears 
hear the Messiah sounding the Schofer on the 
highest peak of the Carpathiansr 

For eight days, as it is commanded, Reb Eljé 
Lebowitz remained in his house without moving; 
the windows were shut, the candles lighted, the 
button-hole of his caftan torn in sign of mourn- 
ing, and he ate hard-baked eggs which old Rachel 
cooked for him in the ashes. 

In time of war, when Death mows down the 
young, the old folk in the villages crouch over 
their devastated hearths. They say one to an- 
other that they are old and useless, that their life 
is a burden, that it is they themselves who should 
have died. They reproach Heaven that had sac- 
rificed the living shoot for the withered branch 
and wrongfully reversed the fair order of the 
world. Endlessly they weep, and when speech 
fails them their grieving silence far surpasses 
words. Their minds go seeking for the dead, to 
bring them near: they see them, they re-animate 
them, recall their past deeds and torture their 
hearts by imagining what might have been the 
future of those lives that fate has broken. So 
strong is their affection, so powerful their regrets, 

[223] 


TH EXS HIAND 0 WMOD EMMEH EAC OS 


they feel themselves go astray in the desert of 
empty days, so bereaved, so lost, so impotent to 
perform what youth might have accomplished, that 
their immense lassitude becomes gradually shame, 
remorse for being alive. 

“O Eternal! Rock of the Worlds,” said the 
Sofer weeping, “why hast Thou taken this child, 
and why hast Thou left me to live? In all the 
holy town of Bels was there a child known to 
Thee more good, more mindful of Thy command- 
ments? ... He was not yet thirteen, he had not 
yet performed his barmitzva, he was not yet re- 
sponsible for his deeds before Thee. .. . It is I, 
then, Master of the world, whom Thou wouldst 
punish! ... Yet I was bringing him up for Thee. 
I would have made of him a pious Sofer. He 
should have glorified Thy Name. But Thy ways 
are unsearchable, Thy decrees are ever righteous. 
Thou art the shield and buckler of those who put 
their trust in Thee.” 

The men of Bels came to visit him, lamented 
with him, and as they went away dropped a 
piece of money in a bowl placed on the table; 
for he who is in mourning must live only upon the 
alms of his neighbours. 

- On the ninth day he rose and went to the syna- 

gogue to pray and to fulfil the duties of his office. 

It frequently occurs that the letters on the sacred 

parchments, written in thick greasy ink and stuck 
[224] 


THE SOFER’S CRIME 


rather than imprinted on the impervious surface, 
become detached from it and drop off. And one 
letter fallen off is a member missing from the 
living body of the Law: the Thora becomes, as 
it were, dead, and cannot be used until it is re- 
stored in its perfection. Every week, therefore, 
the Sofer took one of the hundred and fifty rolls 
owned by the synagogue, carried it to his house, 
unrolled it, examined it, and if one letter had 
slipped off he re-wrote it. 

After the morning prayer he mounted the steps 
to the cupboard of the Thora. Putting aside the 
sepharim which he had looked at already, he was 
reaching out towards a roll placed far at the back 
in the darkness of the sanctuary when his old 
fingers encountered a sheet of parchment, the pres- 
ence of which in that place was profanation. 
With a hand that shook with indignation he seized 
the unclean thing and his eyes fell upon these 
words written in a childish hand: “O Holy of 
Holies (blessed be Thou!), deign to prolong the 
life of my grandfather Reb Eljé.” Below were 
the names of all the Jews who, on the evening of 
Kippour, had offered to the Eternal a moment of 
their existence in order to lengthen his days. 

It was not with indignation now, nor with an- 
ger, that his hand shook. Tears full of sweet- 
ness poured down his face and ran over his white 
beard. His old friends, the Rabbi, the Melamed, 

1225 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


the Hohet, the Hazen, had contributed each an 
hour of his life. Pilgrims unknown to him, dwell- 
ing in towns and villages of which even the names 
were unfamiliar, had given, one a whole week, 
another eighteen times eighteen hours, another 
eighteen times eighteen days. But however long 
the list, all these moments added together would 
not have prolonged his life for a great while. 

Suddenly his hands trembled yet more violently, 
a veil spread before his eyes, the page slipped 
from his fingers. This, then, was the cause that 
his old heart was yet beating, that the blood yet 
coursed through his veins, that his child was no 
more: Reuben had given all his life. 


[226] 


PAT Rene 
MALE REY OLS AE Lie 


How hard it is to carry on, in sorrow and 
mourning, the work undertaken in hope and joy! 
How hard it is to the Sofer’s heart to continue 
the Thora that he had begun in thankfulness to 
Adonai for having saved his child! It is now 
that the earth may lie lightly upon Reuben, and 
that the little body leaning on its crutches may 
travel with ease towards Jerusalem, that the old 
man toils at his copy of the sacred Book. But in 
vain he bathes at dawn in the sanctifying water; 
in vain he covers his head with the taliss and 
wraps the tephilim round his arm; a memory, a 
too dear image, still comes floating like a mist 
between his eyes and the parchment. Why is 
Reuben not there beside his writing table? That 
footstep in the night—can it not be the step of the 
child carrying the candle and the pierced brick? 

Was his voice not heard among the thousand 
singers in the bright candlelight of the Bethami- 
draschr 

This is the day when he would have been thir- 

[227] 


THEN S Hira) O° Wis OFF rl i Ba Ga eae 


teen years old and would have made his barmitzva. 
This morning old Rachel would have brought him 
a new silk caftan and velvet hat. They two 
would have gone to the loved synagogue: together 
they would have prayed. The Hazen would have 
called him to his side on the Almémor and would 
have made him read a passage from the Sidra of 
the day. Thenceforward he would have been re- 
sponsible for his actions before God: he could have 
made one among a group of ten Jews assembled 
for the prayer of Min’ha. And just at this hour 
all the Instruments of Holiness would have been 
gathered here around a brightly-lighted table to 
celebrate the happy day. . . . 

Then suddenly, for the first time in the sixty 
years during which he had been copying the Thora, 
the old man broke off in the midst of writing the 
sacred name of Adonai which ought to be written 
in one stroke of the pen. . . . He saw the brightly- 
lit table! The Melamed, the Hazen, the Hohet, 
the Rabbin, all his friends were gathered round, 
and Reuben was in the midst of them like a young 
Doctor of the Law. He saw him! It was not a 
phantom, an illusion, a cloud. It was he with his 
dear face, his great watchful eyes, his glistening 
curls. . . . How long was his old heart filled by 
that ineffable joy? . . . How long did he gaze at 
that young face while his hand hung motionless 
over the unfinished sacred Name? 


[228] 


MH EAROMONTSR AE LS be 


Then like the shudder with which one starts 
from some long evening reverie, remorse at let- 
ting himself become distracted by a vain con- 
templation drove away the too sweet vision. Reb 
Eljé Lebowitz took off his taliss, untied his tephi- 
lims and, filled with consternation, hastened to 
plunge himself in the ritual bath. 

Many a time since then the great Sofer of Bels 
has stopped in his holy work. An inner voice 
cries to him: “Be careful, Reb Eljé! A profane 
thought passes first by the door like a stranger, 
then it enters like a guest, then it takes possession 
like a master. Cease to pursue this shade, these 
vain regrets, the unsubstantial image of a joy that 
will never more return. Plunge thy hand in the 
ritual water, apply thyself to thy holy work. One 
letter missing or wrongly written in the Law thou 
art copying will make it useless to all the Jews 
who read it and thus by thy fault will be caused 
the ruin of countless generations.” 

He hears that voice as one hears the singing 
of a bird and forgets it as soon as its warbling 
ceases. He dips his fingers in the pail, he takes 
up his pen; then again he stops and returns to 
his dreams. 

Ah; but tell it to no one! His child is not 
dead. The Eternal (blessed may He be!) did not 
accept his sacrifice; only he lets him live elsewhere. 
Where? In what unknown regions? 

[229] 


THEOS HAD OW POR TEE iG RO Sis 


Oh, to see him once more, were it but for an 
instant. Oh, to lift this veil of darkness and 
break this dreadful silence! His imagination, in 
which the follies of the Zohar have taken root like 
a fig tree in a wall, flies away far from the nar- 
row room where he sits copying the Thora. Like 
an eagle hovering over the landscape in search of 
a hare or partridge, he sees stretched out beneath 
him the whole country of Poland; he sees the 
plains, the forests, the lakes and the little woods, 
and all the synagogues and all the Bethamidrasch; 
he sees all the roofs of the houses, he counts all 
the inhabitants, he stares at each group of chil- 
dren seated round the hearths. But nowhere can 
he discover the beloved child who has vanished. 

That little village hidden between the plain and 
the mountain where the storks are perching on the 
dead trees is the village of Hounfalou; that house 
and that yard surrounded by acacias is Amram’s 
tavern; that old man is old Trebitz; that man 
with a burden of sheepskins in his arms is Hertz | 
Wolf; it is his son. That woman pouring out 
drinks for the Tziganes and the Hungarian is 
poor Guitelé. 

But Reuben is not in the yard, on the tree-trunk 
that serves as a bench, nor beside the candlestick 
that the servant has brought in; he is not in the 
tavern, he is not in the bedroom, he is not in the 
synagogue. 

[230] 


HIVER GOMUSRIA EU ee 


Then taking flight once more, the old Sofer 
travels on fantastic courses through the clouds 
over every quarter of the world where children 
are assembled for prayer and for study. Some- 
times he imagines himself arriving in the early 
morning, and already the noisy schoolboys are 
there round the Melamed; sometimes he comes 
in the evening when the whole school assembled 
in the courtyard is sending up towards the moon 
the songs of Noemenie. How many young faces 
in these nurseries of prayers! What glowing eyes! 
What lustrous curls! What eloquent lips are 
there! But one child he never finds; never that 
one! 

O poor Wandering Jew, fugitive on all the roads 
of madness and of dreams! It is neither wealth 
nor power that he pursues. He seeks to break the 
laws of destiny, to bring to life one who has been, 
to re-animate one who is no more. Sublime at- 
tempt, a million million times renewed by im- 
potent grief! 

What power is this, O Lord, what strength of 
unavailing Love that can create out of a memory 
that living thing, and compel a vapour of the soul 
to glow with those warm colours of lifer 


It is night: it is night in Bels, night over all 
the country of Poland, night in the soul of the old 
Sofer. Snow is falling. 

(23h 


THE SHADOW OF (RHE SCR OSS 


Who knocks at the door on this night of storms 
at so late an hour? 

No one has moved. The door did not open. 
But a young stranger appears in the room. He 
knows the house. Without hesitation he finds his 
way in the dark. What pain, what regret there 
is in his face! If there were not such sorrow in 
his eyes one might think them the eyes of Reuben: 
if the sacred curls hung by his cheeks, if his gar- 
ments were longer, if he had a scarf about his 
neck one might believe it that dear lost one... . 

“Ah, dear child, it is thou! How could I not 
know theer Why is this sadness in thine eyes? 
What hast thou done with thy ringlets? Where 
didst thou find those strange clothes? 

“Sit down, my little child. Shake the snow 
from thy clothing, come near the fire. Shake the 
snow and the cold from thy soul; come close to 
my heart. Whence comest thou? Where hast 
thou been? J sought thee in vain, from syna- 
gogue to synagogue, from heder to heder. What 
journeys | have made! What anxiety thou hast 
caused me! Speak, speak, O prodigal son!” 

Reassured by such tender words the phantom 
comes nearer and says: “O grandfather, do not 
seek me any more. I am come to bid thee fare- 
well. Great is the world, and our knowledge is 
little and lifeless. It does not suffice me any 
longer to know that which happened thousands of 

[232] 


HEAR, MOST SRABL 2" 


years ago between Horeb and Mount Sinai. | 
want to know now what men have thought in other 
ages and other civilizations.” 

“O Reuben, O my child, cease to pursue these 
alien thoughts; they bring neither joy nor happi- 
ness. God in old times gave to our King Solo- 
mon the science of all the worlds visible and 
invisible. One of his familiars stole the secrets of 
profane science, and it is he who revealed them 
to the strange nations. But the divine science, the 
only one of value, that one has not been stolen. 
It is we, the Jews, who possess it. Outside our 
sacred books, thou wilt find only disquietude, 
sterility, deserts and perpetual change. Things 
will seem to be thus for one hour, and on the mor- 
row they will appear to thee otherwise. The book 
which thou readest to-day will contradict that 
thou hast read the day before. But truth is one. 
Ours has not changed. The thing which it pro- 
claimed once, remains unalterable, true through all 
eternity: the oneness of God, and faith in the com- 
ing of the Messiah who will bring one day the 
kingdom of justice and love among men. Why 
wilt thou seek elsewhere some other thing?” 

Whether it be the persuasion of these words, or 
the tenderness of the voice, or the tears of the 
old man, the child leans upon his shoulder and 
appears to assent. 

“Let us stand up,” says Reb Eljé. 

[233] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


The Sofer rises, and in a loud voice, in the 
dimly-lighted darkness he begins the recitation of 
the Schema Israel. ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our 
God is one God.” 

The room is lighted with a celestial brightness. 
All trouble has disappeared from the dear face 
found again at last. The old man passes his hand 
over the brow of the child, and the sadness 
vanishes; over his temples and the long hair grows 
again; over his clothes and the garment becomes 
miraculously longer. The scarf of Hassidem 
adorns his neck and the Thora is a crown upon 
his head. And the old man falls asleep with the 
child’s cheek pressed against his heart, while 
over the Crosses of Poland the snow continues 
falling. 

Alas, he has gone in the same manner as he en- 
tered, leaving no more trace than the sound of the 
“Schema”—1if indeed he did repeat it? 

Where shall he be found again now? Into what 
wild regions of the earth or of the soul has he ven- 
tured? 

His child is gone, like one of those unhappy 
boys who leave the Bethamidrasch and are never 
seen again. O sorrow! O regret! His life, like 
that of Job, is but a succession of sombre and ter- 
rifying thoughts. Endeavouring to bring back 
peace into his heart he works day and night at his 
writing. He is still to be seen at the ritual bath, 


[234] 


THERA RAS, OF TS ReA EL? 


faithful to the synagogue, punctual at the Betha- 
midrasch. No one yet suspects what whirl- 
wind of madness is carrying him away. People 
who see him behind his little window-panes, 
wearing the sacred attributes, with his pens and his 
coloured inks before him, say admiringly that he is 
writing the master-piece of his life, and that even 
the Thora of Lemberg which works miracles did 
not occupy him for so many years. 


At last, with error after error, and sin upon sin, 
Reb Eljé arrived at the last verse of the Law: 
“The great and terrible works which Moses did 
in the sight of Israel.” 

The famous Thora of gratitude and of mourn- 
ing was completed. The whole town and the Za- 
dik himself, accompanied with great pomp by the 
Klé Kodesches and other devout persons carrying 
in their arms the hundred and fifty Thoras of 
the Community, came to his house to fetch the 
immortal Book. Reb Eljé Lebowitz, wearing the 
old taliss in which he had copied the incomparable 
text and dreamed so many profane dreams, took 
his place beneath the marriage canopy, holding 
the crowned bride against his heart. Behind him 
came the blessed company of tinkling Thoras 
wrapped in their worn silks, tattered like flags 
which are the glory of murderous nations. But 
Israel has no flag but the holy Thora! The shrill 

[235] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


violins headed the procession, and the singing of 
canticles drowned the noise of the silver bells. 


“Some trust in their chariots, 

And others in their horses; 

But as for us, we call upon the name 
Of the Eternal, our God! 

Lift up your heads, O ye gates! 

Be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, 

And the King of Glory shall come in. 
Who is the King of Glory? 

It is the Lord of Sabaoth.” 


Seven times the procession circled the Almémor 
amid the transports of the crowd, who pressed 
round to touch with the tips of their fingers the 
Thora of Reb Eljé. Amid that mad enthusiasm 
if any human sentiment other than insane grief 
could have entered the heart of the Sofer, he must 
have felt pride. But when the moment came for 
the new sheep to be received among the flock of 
holy Books in the shrine, and when, in honour of 
the Sofer, the venerable Hazen began to read the 
Sidra for the week from the new parchment, he 
was seen to turn pale suddenly and stop dead in 
his reading; he who, as it is commanded, stopped 
never except to take breath: he had found a 
wrong accent in the name of Adonai! 

Every one in the town of Bels then said: “The 
Sofer has gone out of his mind.” 

[236] 


HENRI Ov LS RABE LU” 


Many a Rosch Haschanah and many Kippours 
have passed since the night when Reuben rushed 
through the town to fling his young life into the 
shrine of Thora. All those pious Jews who said 
tehilim at the bedside of Reb Eljé have long since 
departed from this world. The Rofé is dead, the 
Hazen and the Sacrificer are dead. The miracle- 
working Rabbi sleeps likewise beneath the soil; 
his son now works miracles in his place, but the 
Sofer continues to call him Reb Israel as he called 
his father. He alone lives on. A sad, a horrible 
youth has been infused into his veins; and when 
asked his age he replies in that phrase of the 
twelfth Sidra which Jacob, when a hundred and 
forty-seven years old, spoke to Pharaoh who came 
to visit him: “Few and evil are the years of my 
hiex 

Ah, who would recognize the great Sofer of Bels 
whose Thoras are the pride of distant synagogues 
at Budapest, Kieff, and Prague in Bohemia, in 
the figure of this old man with his torn caftan 
and white stockings soiled with mud? 

He is now one of that aimless company of im- 
beciles and beggars who wander from the Zadik’s 
house to the Mikwa, from the Mikwa to the 
bethamidrasch and the synagogue. But under his 
ragged taliss where the embroideries of silver shine 
through the black dirt he is still magnificent with 
his spotless beard, his madness and his misery. 

[237] 


THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS 


There are always a few children about him; he 
is not like those irritable old men who cannot 
endure to be worried at their prayers and who, not — 
ceasing for a moment to mutter their psalms, have 
a hand ever ready and a foot yet quicker. He is 
gentle and talks to them and says incoherent 
words to them. It is a game to ask him: “Well, 
Reb Eljé Lebowitz, and have you seen your 
Reuben to-dayr” He answers with a mysterious 
air: “No, no; not yet to-day. But to-morrow, 
very soon perhaps.” And he walks away, taking 
long strides like a Jew who is expected at a busi- 
ness meeting. 


On a certain evening of Kippour the pious Jews 
of Bels, disburdened, purified of sin, were hasten- 
ing towards their joyful homes, where the candles 
were burning brightly, and the cocks and hens 
which had been loaded with all the transgressions 
of Israel would presently serve to revive their 
energies exhausted by twenty-four hours of lam- 
entation and fasting. Reb Eljé returned alone 
to his dark and empty house. There is no child’s 
arm, no shoulder to be the prop of his old age; 
only a frail and mighty memory aids his steps. 
He enters. All is sad and sombre; not one candle 
lighted, not one feast-day cake. His sole repast 
is a wretched broth of chicken-meal and beans 
at the bottom of a porringer. But the old man 


[238] 


MHEAR (OGISRIAE Dba! 


has learned long since to feed on dreams alone. 

How solitary, how forlorn it is beneath the old 
desolate roof among the dusty sepharims and 
citrons! Frozen, despairing, his most faithful 
friend, his last companion, the dream itself has 
fled. Cold hours of sorrow, when grief is so 
heavy, so weary of itself, so crushed by its own 
weight that it can devise no further torture for 
itself! The head sinks low, the heart surrenders, 
the worn and wasted soul breaks down and 
crumbles into dust. 

Away in the town, the usual clamour of the 
night of Pardon was rising: shouts, quarrels, 
cracking of whips, rumbling of carriages, blows 
of mallets driving down the stakes for the tents. 
And in the old man’s troubled mind the pious 
tumult of the festival became marvellously trans- 
‘formed. 

Around him dead things are waking, slowly the 
shadow grows lighter. A shudder passes through 
the room, all things come to life again; and the 
dream comes back, and the soul revives, and the 
solitude is filled with living faces, and sorrow, fly- 
ing on its tall black horses, flees away. Between 
the table and the wall there rises out of the deep 
shadow an enormous unknown town with men in 
wild and violent action rushing like hounds in 
chase of some invisible quarry. None wears ring- 
lets, none is dressed in a caftan, none speaks the 


[239] 


THE YS HAD OW,*0'R MTEPERCRIUERS 


much-loved Yiddish! And among the crowd is 
a man like all those other men, shaven like those 
others, hurrying like those others, speaking the 
same hateful language. What resemblance is 
there between this stranger wearing gold-rimmed 
glasses on his nose, a gold chain on his waistcoat, 
a starched collar round his neck, and the child 
with the sacred ringlets and the long-skirted gar- 
ment so foolish and grotesque? 

Yet it is he! His heart knows him. “Reuben, 
Reuben!” he calls. But at that beloved name the 
unheeding passer-by does not even turn his head. 
He continues on his way. The old madman pur- 
sues him and clutches at his arm. “Reuben, 
Reuben, my child, dost thou not know mer I 
am thy grandfather Reb Eljé for whom thou hast 
given thy life.” 

“My life! What are you talking of, old man? 
What life have I given? I was never more alive 
than now!” And the mouth as it speaks, the eyes 
behind the gold-rimmed glasses draw away into 
the distance, grow dim and begin to disappear. 

Then, in a despairing voice: “Reuben, my 
little child, hast thou then forgotten the holy 
town of Bels?” 

At these words the other at last stops, and turn- 
ing on the Sofer the vague look of a man who is re- 
membering or dreaming: “Yes, sometimes, in 
days of weariness old scenes rise up, I know not 


[240] 


“HEAR, VON TSRAEL LL" 


whence, in my memory. A dear and far-off coun- 
try comes before me, with fir trees very dark and 
tall; and there, as in a mausoleum, are preserved 
the things that existed long ago. I see it covered 
with snow, I see the house, I see the graves in 
which are buried past joys that can return no 
more. I remember a lighted hall and hundreds of 
heads bent over lunatic books. I remember tables 
and benches where I have slept and have been 
wakened many a time by the icy cold of the dawn. 
I remember a barn-like building filled sometimes 
with sobs and prayers, sometimes with a hideous 
din of famished people flinging themselves upon 
the food and wine. 

“Sometimes in the middle of the night one of 
these memories wakes me. I seem to hear all 
round me, like the wind howling under the door, a 
noise of psalms. I fancy I see all about my room 
the Talmuds, the Zohars and the Tschalos tzhivos 
crowding upon me with their maddening problems. 
A smell of tobacco and stale pipes and old linen 
turns me sick. A cold sweat breaks out upon my 
temples. 

“Then I wake, I turn on the light and the night- 
mare fades away. 

“But what am I dreaming of? Why do you 
come recalling to me things I wish to think about 
no more? Long ago I shut them away in the 
double-locked chest where I keep the taliss and 

[241] 


LATE NS HA D'ONWNO FUTHEMNCROSS 


the tephilim of an old man whom I loved 
Clear uen 

Warm, fast-flowing tears pour down the cheeks 
of the old madman as he raves. Thoughts inex- 
pressibly sad are whirling in his brain and through 
that tumult he still hears the voice: “And do you 
imagine, old man, that I shall go on living that 
old life yonder? If you did but know what a sigh 
I gave when I saw the last of the bethamidrasch 
and the synagogue! What freedom! What glad- 
ness! It was like a cool bright water that reflects 
calmly all the sky and earth, and the Crucifixes 
at the cross-roads did not terrify me any more. 
As soon as I had cut off my ringlets and shortened 
my long caftan, the world was my own. ‘How 
clever he is!’ they say of me. ‘How came he 
by that subtle intelligence that nothing can con- 
fuse?’ 

“Old man, how well you equipped me for life, 
never dreaming of what you were doing! How 
well you drilled me in searching for the hidden 
meaning of words, and how greatly I have profited 
by your saintly exercises! I bind and I unbind 
the most complex affairs; one word from my 
mouth will bring prosperity or ruin. The fables 
of a former world lie about me in the dust like 
the fowls of Yom Kippour at the feet of the Sac- 
rificer, and men stand astonished as [ present to 
them the Fruit of the New Year. 

[242] 


DEAR CO MLSRAE LV 


“Next year to Jerusalem! That old cry ot 
humiliated hope which through centuries of trib- 
ulation you have echoed in the darkness, I, too, 
have cried it in the night. And now the day has 
arrived. The gates of the City of Gold are 
opened before me. How long I have been a way- 
farer in storm and tempest, and now in what 
glory of success! I have vanquished the Chris- 
tian children, I have trampled on the shadow of 
the Cross, I have found Jerusalem, I have rebuilt 
the fallen Temple, but in my own fashion, Reb 
Eljé! 

“O aged image of the past, old copyist of the 
Law, standing before the house of the Zadik at 
the foot of the worn brick steps, all your life long 
you have been calling for the miracle. But mir- 
acles, you see, don’t happen to-day in the way 
that our prophets prophesied them of old, or in 
the way you hoped for. Look no longer for the 
prophet Elias to sound the Schofer some day 
from the highest peak of the Carpathian moun- 
tains. The trumpet has sounded long ago, and 
the miracle is here Look at me, Reb Eljé 
Lebowitz: the miracle is I, myself!” 

“Listen, my little child, I am old, I am very old. 
There are things that I cannot understand now. 
The words go buzzing round me and do not enter 
my head. Listen, my little child, I would ask 
thee one thing. That alone concerns me. Dost 

[243] 


THE*“S HAD OI WMO FETE SOROS 


thou still say the Schema Israel? This is what I 
long to know——” 

A cruel, heart-rending laugh bursts from the 
shade. Ah, this time his child is indeed dead! 

The great Sofer of Bels stood up in the midst 
of the darkness, made a few steps through the 
room to the table where now he wrote only words 
without meaning; he beat the air with his hands 
and fell forward with his face upon the polluted 
Thora. 

Through heaven the nocturnal weaver of en- 
chantment and illusion, the moon of the Jewish 
nights and festivals, pursued her way amid the 
desert of stars. A carriage in the distance went 
jolting through the mud. There was still the 
sound of one or two mallets hammering on the 
tent-poles. The holy town of Bels sank to sleep 
in the peace of pardon, to resume on the morrow 
its strange phantom life. 


[244] 


as CaN UE 
Py oy, Ki ie 
Qu 7 108 


: A: 
À Lee xy b 1 


0 










7 JA = ns = > Sa = 
— et Sea 
neg ae 
ee <. 


En, 
Sas 
Pe 
a oe ee a= 
Se 
etl 


AL ALAN 
WP 6 fui merely, 
a 
WHE Ra gud hepEAL VA EYE 
i PR ANT J. | AUD EME LA 4 LA he ER 
i A hve (Ws fy URED ap RAGE ÿ 
DL Grae EN AE Yi AA: D'UN iV 

Pe Are ws EN) SEL Wey 

aA a AE My ae: 4 


V5! (14 re i - i af 7 

LE , "AD ie 7 LAS L Vee 7! oF Ja, 
BA 4 Ù AE ee CARN 7! fi My | 
g ie 1" i a Af ans L 6 


‘ 


+ 
Ê RE 


ee 
— 
iy 
—. : 
= 
>» 
= 
ee 


À i 
ae + 
€ 
= 
— 
he 
= Le 
ee 
x ak Der Te > 
; pe, ta 
ae 
= 
das 
—— 





Hy € 
4 . j 1 + 4 
te } * LA J Ar La à FASO (LA 
c ru dr e > ee 4 PS A A MEL 
PA Pate LA 4 ee a! ie LT, 1" ry ia À de NC PATENT by ING À Ÿ” 
sh matt af i yi bye à F f/ i } (à ? | far vy FA vi eo F À : 
ni { ee) be 14 y Le LEO LL ITS CA uy [AU 
AURAI EN PAT ECS MORE DA CES DERNIER ELA) | 
Ay \ MANS td “a je "3 ie ae ? . JA à. À Ny FL (à 4% Ne ‘ iyi 
} ibn if qui FAN ur iis” ey CN if QU: L'an ry À | wit j | A 4 
e ae CA ae NE DM er noe EL es AAA SMT EMA ue. 
eR CU Ae Me hed Fae Tee Oy due LU as LEE Ae GO, À 
(ALA cantik A re RUE Si APTE "AR WT LA À En fale Vou 
Fy rae any ly St ee AD 8 Lia mares ae eg b RO aS 
4 ‘ y al à ter OUR Trot 4 ni; he iy, ye: Pe À" 
à Pure J ia i 14 re 4 7, 
| Te LAER CTR OUACA RY RIOR EE PEER QUE € (NC 
CAPE ARR TT a AR SENTE I LE EE | ey a) 4) 
ype PME ETES NUM ANR ANA EUR a Ne Pa 
Be De fa ie ; A N i al CRT « 
HU j ies uty À Fa L my ‘ | AL A | \ | re, À sh A. me Vy " ens 
ae Ki EEL À Ay TAN alt iM ihe ji i LA 4 { a hese! a a 
TA i ry ih nt f A 4 up! 14 UN ds } VA dt | + | Bis! Ÿ Uy Ne , 
. / AAA is hehe A TS Fig) APTE ak hie NS PEN RENNES 
| Aen - | k ah Lex O5 PUR QU Oa NET A EIE 
sf f FX } +e i) fi 14 cM : Ÿ *) Nu Ni ; & L ‘ y}. : pe no À My 
WP | ~ ni i | | LAN ay À F1 '7 NA 
ii W> wy, ey i, ] | ‘ 1 { ied un 7 # ry 1,4 
SR ey, tees TAA rik 4 2D 4 j AU LA AU nu 
iY Se ONE Ven? LUE NV ui) My Se N MR ER INR 
AA QT mit u tb il dl { | 4 CAM ON RES EE à 
beet!) FLAN just 144 UE PRE >) AA EN OUEN uf LE Ly 180 
NT, te EAS Fe Y'A } ee 4 A : re) rs ah ) vk VAL 1 ih k 
‘ D'UN poy ae Se AMEN ; (HIT TI NES Û De tea d ; EDL VA 
PA AUX ee PR ORNE CR RRL LATTE 0 A 
} i | 4 ad a { [A - ’ 7 nay y 7, ae } 4 Wry ' Y 
Ki Be ag PAL A's a’ a \ As 7 {l ON 4 PR 7 ik Le . 
OS A ee art RNY ay ey aan WE IDS by 
“HR | iii Fi ds 


\ Lt iL l 
D . b 
mt FACETEN 
4 Oe NE i i 
he ’ Qi | pi i 
y N); MA 
ETES 











